Suchergebnisse

The military and economic balance in war has shifted strongly against Ukraine, and it is very hard to see how this tendency can now be reversed. There is still time for Ukraine to win a qualified victory against Russia; but only if the United States commits itself strongly to a compromise peace.
Russia's population is at least four times that of Ukraine, and its GDP is 14 times greater. Western attempts to cripple Russia through economic sanctions have failed. The Russian economy grew by around three percent in 2023, as a result of increased energy exports to non-Western countries and a massive and successful effort to invest in military industrial production. Ukraine is making desperate attempts to boost its own military production, but from a far lower industrial base coupled with an acute shortage of skilled labor.
The Biden administration is therefore correct to warn that without continued and massive U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Russia will quickly win. It is however equally clear that U.S. aid — still less at the levels sustained to date — cannot be guaranteed even in the medium term. Partly due to the new U.S. commitment to Israel created by the Gaza war and the threat of it spreading, the United States is also failing adequately to replenish Ukraine's dwindling stocks of air-defense missiles, which are crucially important both on the battlefield and in the protection of Ukrainian infrastructure and industry. Both the United States and Europe are failing to meet their targets for increased production of artillery shells, which Russia is firing at some three to five times the Ukrainian rate.
And even if the West could vastly increase its military production (highly doubtful given the pressure on Western budgets, supply chain problems, and skilled labor shortages), we cannot provide Ukraine with more soldiers. Ukrainian manpower shortages are becoming increasingly acute, and are leading to increasingly draconian conscription measures and bitter disputes within the Ukrainian government over how to enforce conscription, which is faltering in the face of growing public resistance.
Following the failure of last year's Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Biden administration and the Ukrainian government and military have all shifted to a defensive strategy, including trying to fortify Ukraine's long northern border with Russia and Belarus. This region has been quiet since Moscow withdrew its troops in the spring for 2022, after the failure of its initial invasion from the north. However, Russia's growing advantage in numbers means that at some point in future, its army may be able to attack again along this front.
While smart, and even if successful in the short term, a strategy of standing indefinitely on the defensive has two colossal disadvantages for Ukraine. Politically, it brings with it the obvious implication that Russia will go on holding the areas it now controls. This being so, more and more Ukrainians and Westerners will obviously begin to call for a compromise peace. The danger is that if we leave this too long, the balance will have shifted so decisively against Ukraine that Russia will have few incentives left to compromise.
For militarily, a permanent defensive strategy commits Ukraine to an indefinite war of attrition in which Russia has huge long-term advantages. It is quite true that as in the First World War, recent developments in military technology strongly favor the defensive. This was shown in the defeat of the Russian offensive of 2022 and the Ukrainian offensive of 2023, and the very slow progress that Russia has made in its effort to capture small towns like Avdiivka in the Donbas. However, we should also remember that in the First World War, great superiority in numbers, munitions and economic strength did eventually lead to victory for the Allies.
Faced with this reality, the Ukrainian government and Western backers of complete Ukrainian victory are resorting to a set of optimistic stories, which might be unkindly described as stretching from the doubtful to the magical. One of these is to take the highest possible estimate of Russian casualties in its recent offensives, and on this basis to argue that through repeated failed offensives, the Russian army will exhaust itself to the point where Moscow seeks peace on Western terms. However, unless the Ukrainian army could attack successfully in turn, this would still leave the territories now occupied by Russia in Russian hands.
It is also not at all clear on what basis Western analysis is making these "estimates." In some cases, they come straight from the Ukrainian military. According to Ukrainian military veterans with whom I spoke last year, the belief that in the Donbas, Russia is launching mass "human wave" attacks in the style of World War II appears to be largely wrong. Rather, the Russian army has sought to force the Ukrainians to fight in relatively small, clearly defined areas where they can be pounded incessantly by Russian artillery.
The goal at present seems not to rapidly seize large amounts of territory, but to rely on Russia's advantage in artillery to kill large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers, while trying to keep Russian casualties as low as possible. If this picture is correct, then while Russia's approach will take time, in the long run Ukraine's shortage of troops means that it will simply not have enough left to cover its entire front.
The other hope of the Ukrainian government and pro-war Westerners rests in long-range missiles. If the West can be persuaded to provide many more of them, then it is argued firstly that by knocking out the Kerch bridge and driving off the Russian navy, Ukraine can isolate Crimea and force Russia to sue for peace. This hope is empty. The one major success of the Russian invasion of 2022 was to conquer the land between Russia and Crimea. It was this "land bridge" that last year's Ukrainian offensive was intended to break — but failed to do so.
The other Ukrainian plan — as demonstrated by the latest Ukrainian attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod — seems to be missile strikes on targets in Russia in an effort to put pressure on the Kremlin. As a military strategy, this is also hopeless. The vast size of Russia means that in terms of damage to Russia's economic capacity, even greatly expanded Ukrainian attacks would be mere pinpricks. In terms of civilian casualties, they will anger ordinary Russians without killing anything like enough to produce a mass movement for peace.
It may be however that angering Russians is precisely the Ukrainian intention. A strike by a Western-supplied missile that caused very large civilian casualties or destroyed a high profile target could lead to massive pressure on the Kremlin to retaliate against the West, whether by hitting Western targets in Ukraine or by providing its own missiles and satellite technology to enemies of America in the Middle East. This could in turn provoke much more direct Western involvement in the conflict — which Kyiv desires but the Biden administration and European governments have been anxious to avoid, and which the United States can desperately ill afford given the dangers it is facing elsewhere in the world.
If this picture is correct, then Washington and Kyiv both have a strong incentive to open peace talks while we still retain significant leverage; for if we wait, the terms that we will get in the future are likely to be much worse for Ukraine and much more humiliating for the West. In terms of Putin's goals when he invaded Ukraine, and of the past 300 years of Russian domination of Ukraine, a war that ended today with 80 percent of Ukraine independent and free to seek membership of the European Union should be seen as a very important victory for Ukraine. It would not be a complete victory — but complete victory is simply no longer possible.

The United States has cast a values veil over its multifaceted match of punishments and restrictions with China. When he dismisses Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a "dictator," the Cold War veteran is making a pointed value judgement that puts a moral spin on the relationship. According to many in Washington, there is a new "axis of evil" out there, and China is the fallen angel, supported by Russia, North Korea, and Iran.If global diplomacy was a morality play, there would surely be no actor more devoted to principles and the fight for good over evil than the Vatican, arguably the consummate values-driven state, despite its own cardinal sins in the human resources department. Of course, in the past, the Roman Catholic church has strayed from the straight and narrow and made soul-wrenching deals with the devil — consider Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, the juntas in Chile and Argentina, and the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. With China, the Holy See is not trying to drive the Communist "Satan" away or turn it into a paragon of religious freedom. The main mission has been to find ways to build trust and gain confidence. Religious affairs and China specialists have drawn parallels between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party in the way they are organized, function and exercise authority, leading some to consider the similarities a source of affinity if not mutual understanding. For example, the city-state's diplomatic efforts have remained consistent and persistent from one papal administration to the next, starting arguably with the progressive world-traveling Paul VI back in the 1970s and through the conservative reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to the liberal non-judgmental crowd-sourcing faith of Francis. Today, there may be no need to pray to Saint Jude for a papal visit to China. It could happen, although the incumbent shepherd, who requires a wheelchair to meet his flock, would seem physically unable to take on such a pilgrimage — there are some 20 cathedrals and basilicas in the mainland. In September, however, he came close, spending five days in neighboring Mongolia, which has only about 2,000 Catholics, compared to about 12 million in China. If, as many papal succession oddsmakers who try to divine the mysterious ways of the Holy Spirit believe, the next pope is from Asia, then hopes for a China trip will surge. And the momentum of goodwill and history could bring the bishop of the Eternal City to the Forbidden City.The Holy See's diplomatic agenda with China is less complicated than Washington's. The Vatican has simple objectives — to unify the Roman church so there is coherence in its management and in catechism and theology, and to protect Catholics everywhere so that they are free to worship in churches and practice their faith openly. The missionary work here is not as much of a priority, though in other parts of the world, the Church is battling to keep souls on pews and recruit priests.In 2018, the Vatican signed an agreement with Beijing on a process for appointing bishops in the patriotic Chinese church — the open part of the church that pays allegiance to the state. In the order of the mass in the patriotic church, the pope does get mentioned, along with the bishop of the diocese, while the state does not, exactly as is the practice in churches around the world. Catholics in China who are loyal to the pope have worshipped underground in secret, or at least discreet, locations. The Vatican-Beijing agreement on bishops, with the pope having the last word on Chinese-approved candidates, essentially recognizes the spiritual authority of the Holy Father, with the state nominally a regulator or monitor of religious affairs. The hopeful prayer is that if the selection process works smoothly, this would make it possible for underground Chinese Catholics to surface and eventually allow the Vatican to establish formal relations with Beijing. For now, the Holy See has diplomatic relations with and representation in Taiwan as the Republic of China, with a nunciature or embassy in Taipei. There has been no nuncio appointed since 1971; a chargé d'affaires is the highest-ranking resident official. Meanwhile, the Holy See maintains a "study mission" in Hong Kong — a de facto consulate — that is manned by a Vatican diplomat, typically a monsignor, or clergyman of stature.These diplomatic missions are by no means the only means of engagement. Two Chinese bishops, both of whom Pope Francis nominated from a list put forward by Beijing, participated in the October synod convened by the pope to discuss church issues and policy. After the Holy See complained that China had appointed a bishop earlier this year who had not received the papal imprimatur, no Chinese prelates were on the initial list of synod participants. But on the eve of the gathering, the two were included on the final roster. While they turned up, they left midway through the three-week conference. Francis has also reached out to Beijing in other ways. Hong Kong archbishop Stephen Chow, whom the pope recently made a cardinal, visited Beijing in the spring before receiving his red biretta. In November, the head of the Chinese Catholic church, Bishop Joseph Li Shan paid a return visit to Chow's archdiocese. When his plane entered Chinese airspace en route to Mongolia, Francis issued a message of greetings. "I ask Chinese Catholics to be good Christians and good citizens," he said days later to the congregation at a stadium mass in Ulaanbaatar, which Catholics from China and around the region attended. That same month, the Vatican sent its envoy on the Ukraine conflict to China. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who had been to Kyiv, Moscow and Washington prior to Beijing, was received by the special envoy for Eurasian affairs, the first-ever meeting in the Chinese capital between the Holy See and a senior Chinese official. This effort was reminiscent of the Holy See's behind-the-scenes efforts to reconcile the U.S. and Cuba. Contrary to its crusading past, the Vatican has been brokering peace among nations since even before the establishment of the city-state in 1929. It was involved in the negotiations to end both world wars and sought to mediate between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.China and the Vatican have engaged in high-level talks before. In 2020, at the Munich Security Conference, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican secretary for relations with states, considered to be the Holy See's foreign minister, met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. The two discussed the agreement on bishops, which has been renewed twice despite disputes over certain appointments, increasing restrictions on religious freedom, and reports of the destruction of churches in parts of China. The pope, who, as his predecessors did, faces criticism, including from his own cardinals for engaging Beijing, acknowledged in a Reuters interview last year that the deal was "slow going," but stressed that the Church had to take a long view and that imperfect dialogue was better than nothing. The diplomacy lesson offered by the world's chief values-card player is that pragmatism, patience and consistency are the best tools for doing the godly work of peace and security building. With China, there will be setbacks to endure and sacrifices to make. A workable deal requires painstaking negotiation and may not be ironclad. But with faith and perseverance, an understanding can be reached — and eventually a miracle might happen.

China and the United States, like sports captains picking sides, have been engaged in a considered effort to enlist partners. In the recruitment rush, the Biden administration has given short shrift to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its much vaunted balancing, or "centrality" in the Asia Pacific. Washington, like Beijing, has favored certain ASEAN members over others, frustrated no doubt by the group's lack of cohesion and effectiveness. But in the new multipolar world, these hinge countries and their groupings can be as important as power poles. There has been a lot of coalition building lately. In August, the BRICS bloc — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — invited six new members to join at the start of 2024. In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia reestablished ties after years of antagonism in a deal brokered by Beijing. In July, China signed an accord on law enforcement and security with the Solomon Islands and announced a strategic partnership with Georgia. This month, China upgraded its relationship with American bugaboo Venezuela to an "all-weather" partnership.The U.S. has been similarly busy — perhaps more so to make up for Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bridge-building over the past decade. In August, President Joe Biden and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts launched a trilateral grouping at Camp David. The U.S. and the Philippines in February revived an agreement giving increased American access to Filipino military facilities. In May, the U.S. and Papua New Guinea concluded a defense pact. At the G20 summit in New Delhi this month, the leaders of the U.S., the European Union, India, Saudi Arabia and other countries committed to developing an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor for cooperation on clean energy, power grids and telecommunications. After the G20, Biden traveled to Hanoi where the U.S. and Vietnam announced that they were elevating relations to a "comprehensive strategic partnership," deepening cooperation in cloud computing, semiconductors and artificial intelligence — all areas of contention between Washington and Beijing. In a 2021 lecture, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan described how the administration was assembling a "latticework of alliances and partnerships globally." This was "not just about refurbishing the old bilateral alliances," he explained, "but modernizing those elements of the latticework and adding new components." Sullivan cited as examples the upgrading of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.), to leader level and the creation of AUKUS, the partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra and collaborate on advanced technologies.Both Washington and Beijing say they are not forcing countries to pick sides, though the impression that they do just that is unavoidable. Beijing has applied economic pressure on states for actions that it perceives to hew too closely to American positions — Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan have had to deal with such coercion. In network building, the U.S. has offered more carrots than sticks, particularly when it comes to courting pivotal states that Washington deems to have distinct geostrategic importance and — more to the point — the capacity to contribute to countering or containing China. In the Indo-Pacific, India, the Philippines and Vietnam have been the chief recipients of American courtship. But what about ASEAN? Washington insists that it values ASEAN centrality, but the proof of its perspective is in its actions. Biden skipped ASEAN's annual leaders' jamboree with dialogue partners, leaving it to his vice president to go to Jakarta, but squeezed in a visit to Hanoi just days later. The president's participation in the G20 was a not-to-be-missed opportunity to butter up Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who only in June had been feted at the White House. India is the most-prized pivot country in the Indo-Pacific (that status so obvious in the term). Under Modi, it sees itself as a power pole in its own right. New Delhi has proven its multi-alignment credentials, with its participation in the Quad, the BRICS and the China/Russia-conceived Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and its refusal to turn against traditional ally Moscow since the Ukraine war broke out. Biden is oiling the Indian hinge so it swings more Washington's way — and may be succeeding, given India's border clashes with China and its participation in joint military activities in the Pacific, Quad initiatives and Biden's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF).ASEAN should be as critical a hinge player if not to win over, at least to keep "central" as the region's balancer — a crucial section of the lattice that would act as a security blanket for peace and stability. Some member states, worried that the China-U.S. rivalry undermines their agency, have warned the two great powers against forcing them to choose sides. ASEAN has not bought into the American Indo-Pacific construct, merely articulating an "outlook" on the concept. Southeast Asian nations will profit more not by putting on any one team's jersey, but instead playing the field as something of a referee or honest broker in good stead with both sides, however heated the competition.U.S. administrations have never taken the centrality of ASEAN seriously, largely because member states themselves have failed to show what it means to be the region's ballast. It is a systemic problem — ASEAN is no EU in either form or practice. Even though it has launched an "economic community" and has sought to address thorny problems, such as Myanmar and the South China Sea, as a group, it remains a politically divided, economically diverse collection of states, with a reputation for glacial progress and ineffectiveness. It was born this way, though it was successful in its founding mission to be a bulwark against communism's spread.But ASEAN has strengths beyond being the world's fifth largest economy. Its convening power is unmatched, reaching across economic and strategic spheres. Its ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus are as evolved and inclusive a strategic framework for the region as is possible. ASEAN-led platforms offer a neutral space for the great powers to interact on a wide range of issues. By lavishing attention on certain ASEAN members — the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore (host of a U.S. military facility) — Washington is mimicking the Chinese divide-and-conquer approach (Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are reckoned to be on Team Beijing). But even small gaps weaken a lattice. The ASEAN way may be slow and plodding — negotiations with Beijing on a code of conduct in the South China Sea have dragged on for years — but this tortoise cannot be written off.In a speech on September 13 outlining "the power and purpose of American diplomacy," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tellingly never mentioned ASEAN. Yet, the Biden administration may be smartening up. Seven of the ASEAN 10 are part of the IPEF, the American answer to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), from which the U.S. withdrew, and the ASEAN-China concocted Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade accord. And guess who's coming to the White House for a bilateral with Biden in November? Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the very leader whom Biden "snubbed" in favor of one night in Vietnam. With its sizable population, strategic geographical position, participation in China's BRI, a maritime dispute of its own with Beijing, a growing strategic relationship with Washington, and a critical presidential election next year, Indonesia is the key hinge power in Southeast Asia. Like India, it has proven its agency and pragmatism, particularly in vital areas such as data security standards and infrastructure development. Giving Jakarta more attention would bolster ASEAN's position in the American Indo-Pacific latticework, especially with Laos, a country that tilts towards Beijing and is taking over from Indonesia as ASEAN chair next year.

In an interview with Le Figaro published on August 16 and based on his new book, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy laid out what has been missing from Western thinking on the war in Ukraine: a diplomatic Plan B in case the present Ukrainian offensive fails.


If it does fail, as seems increasingly probable, the most likely alternative to a diplomatic solution is an indefinite and bloody war of attrition along roughly the present battle lines.


Quite apart from the threats of disastrous escalation and a NATO-Russia war described by Sarkozy, Westerners who are or claim to be friends of Ukraine should consider the consequences of an unending war on that country. These include a continuation of dreadful human losses and continued destruction of the Ukrainian economy, with no certainty at all over who will pay to rebuild it. They would also entail the indefinite postponement of the process of EU accession, which would have offered Ukraine its best chance of truly joining the West and the inability of Ukrainian refugees to return home, leading to a catastrophic and permanent decline in Ukraine's population.


In addition to all of this: the possibility that a Ukrainian army exhausted and bled white by years of failed offensives will eventually fall victim to a Russian counter-attack, leading to territorial losses far greater than Ukraine has suffered so far.


This being so, one might think that even those who disagree with Sarkozy's specific recommendations would welcome the chance to hold a serious public debate on ways forward. Instead, the response from the great majority of Western (including French) politicians and commentators has followed the wearisomely familiar path of denunciations of the former president as a "Russian influencer" and "friend of Putin" whose remarks were "shameful" and "shocking."


A survey of Western "news" reports (mostly in fact veiled and hostile opinion pieces) is interesting in this regard. Of the ten top stories about the interview resulting from a Google search, only two focused on Sarkozy's remarks themselves. All the others, in their content and headlines (like "'Shameful' Nicolas Sarkozy Under Fire for Defending Putin" in The Guardian), highlighted and quoted at length the angry attacks on Sarkozy.


What Sarkozy actually said is the following:



"Without compromise, nothing will be possible and we run the risk that the situation will degenerate at any moment. This powder keg could have frightful consequences…


The Ukrainians... will want to reconquer what has been unjustly taken from them. But if they can't manage it completely, the choice will be between a frozen conflict... or taking the high road out with referenda [in territories occupied by Russia since 2014] strictly overseen by the international community… any return to the way things were before [ie Ukrainian rule over Crimea] is an illusion. An incontestable referendum... will be needed to solidify the current state of affairs.



On the question of NATO membership for Ukraine, Sarkozy said that:



"Russia has to renounce all military action against its neighbors … Ukraine must pledge to remain neutral … NATO could at the same time affirm its willingness to respect and take into account Russia's historic fear of being encircled by unfriendly neighbors."


He also described as unrealistic and hypocritical suggestions that Ukraine can join the European Union in the foreseeable future, comparing this to Turkey's hopeless decades-long efforts: "We are selling fallacious promises that will not be kept to."



On French President Emmanuel Macron's previous efforts to negotiate with Putin, Sarkozy said that these had been correct, but that Macron had failed to follow up with any concrete proposals for compromise, partly "due to pressure from eastern Europeans."


Sarkozy asked Europeans to remember that, like it or not, Russia will always remain part of Europe and a neighbor of the EU, with which it will be necessary to co-exist. Therefore, "European interests aren't aligned with American interests this time."


Despite the near-universal vilification Sarkozy's interview has provoked, much of what he said has in fact been stated on background by some U.S. and European officials, and quoted in the Western media. In February, unnamed Biden administration officials told the New York Times that the U.S. goal should not be for Ukraine to retake Crimea (something that they judged both extremely difficult military and a risk for Russian escalation towards nuclear war) but instead to "credibly threaten" the Russian military hold on the peninsula, so as to "strengthen Kyiv's position in future negotiations."


This however leads – or should lead – to the obvious question: Future negotiations about what? Unlike Sarkozy, these U.S. officials and their European counterparts have not been willing to state the obvious conclusion: that if Ukraine could achieve such a military success without actually reconquering Crimea, the resulting negotiations would have to be about returning to Ukraine the territories it has lost since last year, while leaving Crimea (and probably the eastern Donbas, also in practice held by Russia since 2014) in Russian hands.


Nor have they addressed the question of how such a peace settlement could be internationally legitimized. Here Sarkozy has suggested a democratic solution that has also been proposed by Thomas Graham and others, but has been rigorously ignored by the governments of Western democracies: to place the decision in the hands of the populations of the areas concerned through internationally supervised referenda.


At present however — and as the Pentagon correctly in advance warned was likely — the Ukrainian army is still very far from being able to retake Crimea, and will very likely never be in that position. The probable failure of the present Ukrainian offensive is now being widely discussed by Western official and unofficial analysts. Once again, however, few have drawn the obvious conclusion that the result will be a prolonged war of attrition, leading either to an eventual ceasefire along present lines or — possibly — to a new Russian victory.


Even fewer have echoed Sarkozy in arguing that the eventual result will have to be a compromise peace, and suggested what the terms of that peace should be.


As to Ukrainian EU membership, EU officials and analysts with whom I talked in Brussels last autumn echoed in private Sarkozy's profound skepticism that this would be possible for a very long time to come. This is partly because the costs of Ukrainian reconstruction would place unprecedented and colossal strain on EU budgets. Six months ago, the World Bank estimated that the cost of this reconstruction would already be around $411 billion — two and a half times Ukraine's GDP for 2022 and more than twelve times the EU's entire present annual spending on aid to its poorer members.


Severe doubts were also expressed to me about Ukraine's ability to achieve the kind of internal reforms that would enable it to even begin to meet the conditions of the EU's Acquis Communautaire. President Macron believes that even if peace can be achieved, it will take Ukraine "several decades" to qualify. In these unfavorable circumstances for Ukraine and the West, to reject Sarkozy's remarks reflexively and without discussion seems the height of irresponsibility, hypocrisy, and moral cowardice, and also does not serve the real interests of Ukraine.


In 1916 and 1917, as the Western front congealed into a horrendously bloody stalemate and Russia sank into revolution and civil war, dissident voices began to be raised in the European combatants calling for a compromise peace. And in all these countries, these voices were also described as "shameful" and silenced by accusations of "treason" and "surrender."


The result was that three great European states were destroyed, the victors (with the exception of the United States) were irrevocably crippled, and the grounds were laid for Fascism, Stalinism, and the even greater calamity of World War II.


One hundred and six years later, very few historians today would describe those advocates of peace as "shameful," or their critics as correct. What are historians one hundred years from now likely to say about present Western witch hunts against those who propose peace in Ukraine?

In recent years, the attention on competencies in the workplace has grown rapidly. Organizations are progressively realizing how human capital figures as a key source of competitive advantage and how highly performing organizations are commonly linked to highly performing employees (Pfeffer, 1994; Lado and Wilson, 1994; Murray, 2003). In fact, it seems that traditional sources of success, as the existence of barriers to entries or the creation of economies of scale (Porter, 1996; Barney, 1991), are now perceived as able to provide competitive leverage to a lesser degree, while a robust organizational culture, strategic human resources management and organizations' core competencies are becoming comparatively more important. Against this background, organizations are starting to employ new approaches to human resource management. The competency based management approach (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990; Green, 1999; Kochanski, 1997) is becoming increasingly popular among private companies. On the other hand, European public administration systems are only recently starting to implement competency management practices, attempting to keep pace with the demands of some major reforms introduced in the last thirty years (Horton et al., 2002). Public administration systems, in fact, are undergoing deep changes, striving to respond to the constantly mutating environment in which they are bound to operate: many activities are being outsourced back to the market in the belief that private companies are able to better respond to uncertainty and innovation, while the activities that still remain within governments' direct control are increasingly adopting typical business practices and starting to benchmark themselves against their private equivalents, moving closer to a market based management logic that have been defined as "New Public Management" (Horton et al., 2002). The application of market logics to public administrations affected public universities as well, moving them towards what is being defined as "entrepreneurial" universities (Gibbons et al., 1994; Etzkowitz, 2003; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Sporn, 2001). These new logics strongly affected universities' internal organizational assets, which, coherently with their specific context and characteristics, embraced a variety of different approaches and assumed diverse and mixed forms (Kwiek & Maassen, 2012; de Boer & File, 2009; Clark, 2000; Bleiklie, 2007). Competency based management approaches appear to be greatly discussed among public administrations, because they configure as a potentially effective and flexible solution to face these continuous changes in the modern economy and society, such as the growing globalization, the challenge of big data, the increasing competition, and the constant demand for innovation and optimization of processes and services. However, empirical implementations of competency models in public administrations are rarely traceable in the literature (Skorkovà, 2016; Cerase, 2003; Pastorello, 2010; Campion et al., 2010), and even less studies can be found in referral to public universities, especially if referred to non-academic employees, embedded in the technical, technical scientific, data processing, administration, and library professional areas. This extremely heterogeneous and complex context, however, undoubtedly ask for deeper investigation. Given these premises, the purpose of this action research is to contribute to the extant literature, attempting to understand how competencies of non-academic employees help them reach the university's strategic objectives in one of the currently largest European universities, and, from the information arisen, generate an interpretative competency model that could be employed as a comparative framework for future practices and researches. A purposeful sampling strategy has been employed, leading me to select, as the site of the research, Sapienza, University of Rome. The choice fell on this specific university because it figures as an incredibly rich source of information, being the largest university in Europe with more than 4.000 technical, administrative and library employees. More specifically, to address the identified research questions, this doctoral study employs a convergent mixed methods approach (Caracelli & Greene, 1997; Greene, 2007) characterized by a robust qualitative component. The qualitative strand of the research involved employing a bottom up grounded approach to competency modeling, while the quantitative strand derived the competency model from the theory, aiming to link the individual competencies to the strategic objectives of the organization, applying a top down approach. The resulting model from the quantitative strand was, afterward, tested through a survey research. The bottom up grounded approach involved the use of phenomenological interviews detailing operant thoughts and actions associated with success or failure in 125 the technical, administrative, and library employees. Additionally, observations, memoing and field notes were collected with the aim to enrich the analysis. Thereafter, revealing an emergent design of the research, and pursuing the aim to reach a more comprehensive overview of the phenomenon, results from the qualitative strand have been integrated with a concurrent theory driven quantitative approach. The quantitative approach comprised the submission to participants of a list of competences, derived from the review of the literature and the study of the organization, querying them to attribute a level of importance on a scale from "0" to "5" (from "not important" to "extremely important") to those competences, comparatively to their ability to positively impact on the achievement of their professional objectives. This doctoral thesis represents the outcome of a research conducted during the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, funded by Sapienza University of Rome, within a project entitled "the analysis of processes, competencies and job positions for the definition of an organizational model in complex public organizations". The first phase of this project was dedicated to designing an organizational model for faculties and departments. The second phase was focused on building a competency model for the technical, administrative and library staff, for which, a formal organizational model figured as a necessary condition. The organizational model, revised and adapted by the organization and development area's staff, has been implemented in the end of the year 2018. An extension of the research has been considered, thus, necessary, in order to project and build a competency model for the university's employees that would enable the introduction of more flexible and dynamic strategies to human resources management. The realization of a competency model, in fact, is a key step to undertake in order to orient administrative and executive actions, to reach the strategic objectives and to promote employees' skills and potential. This study can provide a useful framework for either scholars, researchers, practitioners, labor unions and policy makers intending to introduce or consider new approaches to human resource management in public universities or administrations, Furthermore, this study may provide useful insights to update existent contractual collective agreements or to introduce new organizational positions or professional roles. Administrators can employ the defined model to identify professional roles' competencies, monitor employees' actual level and plan interventions to eventually enhance it through training. The thesis contains six chapters that have been structured as follows: 1) the research design provides a preliminary overview of the research, by discussing its main features and underlying logic; 2) the second chapter reviews the main themes related to the competency based approach, starting from the analysis of the main interpretation of the term competency and concluding with an overview over the state of the art of competency modeling in European and Italian public administrations; 3) the chapter on methodology presents the adopted convergent mixed methods approach to competency modeling; 4) the fourth chapter provides an extensive outline of the adopted procedures, the emerging results, the limits and implications arising from the qualitative and the quantitative strands; 5) the section on interpretation describes the adopted mixing strategy and the results of the analysis of the emerging dataset; 6) the final chapter briefly reviews the main aims of the study, its core assumptions and discusses the results that arose from the interpretative and analytical phases, together with considerations on their limitations and how these limitations may configure further challenges in future research.

The causes of historical climate changes are a continuing subject of heated discussions, in which political and economical aspects often dominate over the climatological facts. Although it seems indisputable that the discussed changes are a reality, the basic controversy concerns the influence of human activity on their magnitude. Geologists have entered into the discussion relatively late, but they have clearly widened the range of the discussion by the addition of climate changes recorded in various Phanerozoic successions. The present book perfectly fits in the mainstream of this discussion.The attractive book title, suggesting analysis of climate throughout the Palaeozoic, does not correspond very accurately to its content. In fact, the book focuses on the climatic changes only of the Late Palaeozoic, particularly those which occurred during the last 100 Ma of the Carboniferous and the Permian. This was really a very specific period of Earth's history; comprising a geographically extensive and longlasting glaciation followed by a time of dry and hot climate. Simultaneously, geotectonical processes led to numerous changes of continent configurations and sea level, and finally to the greatest mass extinction in Phanerozoic history. There are numerous and readily recognizable indirect indications of Earth's climate changes in the stratigraphic record of the interval under discussion.The book came about from the palaeoclimatic session held at the European Geosiences Union General Assembly Conference in Vienna (2011) and includes 22 papers. As usual, in the case of such sets of papers, their correspondence with the main subject of the book is variable. In a few cases, the main subject of the paper is strictly sedimentological, stratigraphical or regional, and any climatic aspects seem to have been added as an afterthought. However, such papers are the exception, and most of the papers concentrate largely on discussion of past climate changes. All of the papers are grouped formally in five chapters but they can actually be classified into three main topics: general remarks on the Late Palaeozoic climate, stratigraphy and palaeogeography; Carboniferous case studies; and Permian case studies. Incidentally, the book editors were not particularly attached to the chapter subdivision, because the chapter titles are presented only on the contents page, and not in the text. The choice of the four papers that open the book is very sound and the papers are particularly informative. H. Wofner analysed climate changes and their edimentological record in the Carboniferous–Permian time interval. This is a very competent synthesis of recent knowledge of the development of the Carboniferous–Permian glaciation and it provides a brief description of the key world sections, an excellent starting point for further reading of regional case studies. Extremely interesting in the context of present-day discussion is the final conclusion that the variations in CO2 concentrations are not a very convincing cause of global temperature changes. As it proved in the case of the Quaternary glaciation, "rising temperature preceded the increase of atmospheric CO2 ". According to this author, the causes of climatic changes are evidently more complex and were caused by .forces emanating from our galaxy (cosmic ray influx, magnetic intensity, gravitational vectors) and their variation over the course of a galactic year (the time for the solar system to orbit the core of the galaxy)".X. Wang and an assembly of Chinese and Japanese authors summarized the state of knowledge of the Carboniferous of South China. They presented a description of evolving brachiopod, fusulinacean and conodont assemblages in Chinese sections in the context of climate change. Although the paper could be assigned to the group of papers where the climatic context is of secondary importance, the article is an extremely useful synthesis of modern knowledge of the Chinese Carboniferous.Similarly synthetic in character is the paper by Zubin-Stathopoulos et al. on the Pennsylvanian–Permian carbonates in the north-west part of Pangea. The general subject of their observations is the very broad interval starting from the Serpukchovian (upper part of the Mississippian) and ending in the latest Permian in the classical region of east-central British Columbia. Microfacies analysis enabled warm and cold climatic zones to be distinguished and to be assigned to the changing palaeogeographies.The last of the papers included in the basic chapter is dedicated to a summary of the Zechstein magnetostratigraphy. M. Szurlies showed that the duration of the Zechstein (max. 3.5 Ma) was shorter than hitherto accepted and that the Permian/Triassic boundary was located within the continental deposits of the lowermost Buntsandstein. This conclusion had been proposed earlier by some Polish stratigraphers, and it was satisfactory that this hypothesis was now confirmed by magnetostratigraphic data.The second basic set of articles is connected with the Carboniferous and the Pennsylvanian/Permian boundary interval, i.e. with the time of the great ondwana Glaciation. In continental sections the recognition of climatic changes is difficult and therefore it is not surprising that most of the investigations are concentrated on eustatically controlled sedimentary cyclicity resulting from changes in volume of the southern continental ice sheet. Direct consideration of climate variations appears almost by accident in this chapter, and at times this gives the impression that climatic conclusions were added at the request of the reviewers or editors. Nevertheless, there are at least two papers, which describe very precise methodological tools. The first one (U. Gebhardt and M. Hiete) is devoted to the Carboniferous of the Saale Basin (Germany) and proposes an interesting procedure for distinguishing between auto- and allocyclicity in continental red beds of the Variscan intermontane basin (Pennsylvanian). The second one (M. Waksmundzka) is an example of the application of sequence stratigraphy in the correlation of Carboniferous sections between eastern Poland and western Europe, with innovative conclusions on the continuity of sedimentation. Neither paper concentrates on climate issues but they are both very interesting methodological contributions to stratigraphy.The last set of the papers is the most extensive and concentrates on Permian topics. They include direct climate-related interpretations based on geochemical analysis and provide quantitive data of specific climatic components. The best example is the analysis of carbon and oxygen stable isotopes in samples from brachiopod shells by J.K. Nielsen et al., which enabled recognition of seasonal climate changes in two different geographical zones, represented by Spitsbergen (20ºN–45ºN during the Permian) and Central Poland (Kajetanów – 30º farther to the south). Equally interesting is H. Kiersnowski's paper, with the reconstruction of wind directions, dependent on climatic fluctuations during the Permian in western Poland. This is a very elegant example of the application of pure sedimentological data to the interpretation of past climates. Another example of such climatic implicationsdrawn from sedimentological observations is the interpretation by G. Czapowski and H. Tomassi-Morawiec of the bromine content in salt, the key supposition being the connection of this indicator with variations in climate humidity.This part of the book is very well integrated and the component papers have been carefully selected. This most probably results from the personal interest of the book editors, A. Gąsiewicz and M. Słowakiewicz, whose scientific activity is focused on the widely interpreted geology of the Southern European Permian Basin. Their joint article, in the final part of the book, is devoted to the nature of hydrocarbons in the Zechstein Main Dolomite of Poland. In contrast to the older hypothesis on the Carboniferous source of the hydrocarbons, they argued that the majority of the hydrocarbons derived from in situ organic matter. The quoted examples, although selected slightly tendentiously, confirm the general impression after reading the book that strict climatic considerations constitute the addenda rather than the basic conclusions. However, this does not reduce the importance of this valuable and useful book. It is especially worthwhile for all geologists who investigate Late Palaeozoic successions. In conclusion, this excellent set of case studies can be thoroughly recommended and it needs to be in all institutional libraries.

Dottorao di ricerca in Ecologia forestale ; Le criticità di carattere ambientale e produttivo, che attualmente affliggono il settore agricolo, spingono l'attenzione della ricerca e l'interesse delle Istituzioni verso lo sviluppo dei sistemi agroforestali, in modo da abbinare produzioni erbacee e legnose, contribuendo alla salvaguardia ambientale. Il predominio della monocoltura e l'impatto di pratiche agricole intensive hanno contribuito ad una progressiva e pericolosa semplificazione degli agroecosistemi, con serie ripercussioni ambientali e produttive e con un notevole impoverimento di numerosi scenari rurali tradizionali. In tale contesto, il presente lavoro di dottorato si pone l'obiettivo di analizzare il ruolo dei sistemi agroforestali, moderni (sistemi silvoarabili) e tradizionali, nell'ambito della moderna agricoltura, verificandone l'applicabilità in termini di sostenibilità economica. Lo studio è stato condotto alla luce delle nuove direttive a sostegno dell'Agroselvicoltura (Misura 2.2.2 dei Piani di Sviluppo Rurale 2007/13: Primo impianto di sistemi agroforestali su terreni agricoli) e delle modalità di applicazione del Premio Unico Aziendale (PUA) sulle superfici agricole interessate dalla presenza di piante arboree forestali. La tesi ha interessato tre diversi campi d'indagine, strettamente connessi tra di loro e legati alle strategie incentivanti della Politica Agricola Comunitaria (PAC). La prima parte della ricerca ha riguardato l'analisi del modello silvoarabile del noce da legno. Tali sistemi, in base a precedenti ricerche europee di carattere modellistico, sono stati individuati tra i più remunerativi, abbinando la pregiata produzione del legno di noce alla consociazione con diverse colture agrarie. L'obbiettivo della ricerca è stato quello di completare gli studi sull'uso dell'area basimetrica (G) del noce, indice di modellizzazione e di previsione delle performance produttive delle due componenti, erbacea ed arborea, del sistema. Sono state condotte ricerche in una piantagione sperimentale di noce comune ed ibrido del CNR IBAF di Porano, che dal 1992 studia le interazioni tra noce da legno e diverse colture erbacee (grano, trifoglio e prato naturale). Lo studio ha confermato i benefici produttivi di tale sistema colturale, in grado cioè, di assicurare alti ritmi di accrescimento del noce e garantire una buona resa della coltura erbacea consociata. Riassunto Sulla base dei dati raccolti, sono stati elaborati dei modelli colturali di consociazione, per i quali, attraverso l'uso di G del noce, è possibile stimare, sino alla fine del ciclo di produzione legnosa, le interazioni competitive per la luce tra gli alberi e le colture erbacee consociate. La seconda parte della ricerca, realizzata mediante indagini territoriali GIS e rilievi aerofotogrammetrici, analizza la relazione tra sistemi agroforestali e PAC incentivante, con l'obiettivo di quantificare il decremento del PUA per le piante arboree presenti nei sistemi agroforestali tradizionali. Lo studio, condotto in Veneto, Umbria e Lazio, si è concretizzato nell'analisi sia di seminativi arborati tradizionali sia di sistemi lineari arborei lungo i perimetri parcellari. Nei casi esaminati è stata individuata una consistente riduzione del contributo percepito dall'agricoltore per particella catastale, in relazione alla tara generata dalle piante arboree presenti. Inoltre, la ricerca ha anche rivelato una errata fotointerpretazione degli spazi non eleggibili e occupati dalle piante sparse, in contrasto con quanto indicato dalle direttive AGEA per il calcolo del premio. Gli attuali meccanismi di calcolo del PUA per i sistemi agroforestali possono dunque disincentivare gli agricoltori al mantenimento degli alberi fuori foresta. Le informazioni ottenute sono state, infine, validate attraverso interviste strutturate a dottori agronomi, forestali e periti agrari, alla luce della recente introduzione, in alcune Regioni d'Italia, della misura 2.2.2, finanziamenti per l'impianto di nuovi sistemi agroforestali. Il campione studiato ha confrontato due diversi contesti socio-economici ed agronomici del Nord (Veneto) e del Centro (Umbria), per capire il ruolo svolto dalle associazioni di categoria e dai tecnici professionisti nella promozione e propaganda dell'agroselvicoltura e percepire, attraverso il loro rapporto con le aziende agricole, l'effettivo interesse verso tali sistemi. L'indagine ha messo in evidenza il totale insuccesso della misura 2.2.2, legato ad una sua scarsa divulgazione, alla mancanza di un'adeguata attività di ricerca di supporto e alla bassa attrattività economica dei sistemi agroforestali, fortemente legata ad incertezze e lacune del regolamento sulla modulazione del PUA. In generale emerge l'impellente necessità di una PAC più in grado di valorizzare le potenzialità dell'agroselvicoltura per un nuovo modello di sviluppo rurale, in cui gli alberi fuori foresta possano esplicare le proprie valenze produttive ed ambientali. ; Global environmental and productive emergencies, which are currently affecting the agricultural sector, have focused the research attention and the Institutions interest on the preservation and implementation of Agroforestry systems, for their intrinsic capacity of combing food and wood production with environmental preservation. Intensive agricultural practices, combined with predominant monocropping farming systems, have contributed to the progressive and dangerous simplification of agroecosystems, with serious environmental and productive consequences and with a dramatic impoverishment of many traditional rural scenarios. In this context, the PhD work aims to analyze the role of Agroforestry systems in modern agriculture, verifying their economic sustainability. The study, organized into three research papers, was developed in relation to the two main current regulations of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union linked with agroforestry: Measure 2.2.2 of the Rural Development Plans 2007/13: first establishment of Agroforestry systems on agricultural land; the Single Farm Payment (SFP), supporting farmers according to their Eligible Agricultural Area (EAA), that might be reduced by scattered trees across farmland. The first part of the study is related to Silvoarable models of walnut for timber production and intercropped with arable crops. According to recent modeling research, walnut Silvoarable models are amongst the most profitable farming systems under temperate conditions of western Europe. The PhD research was conducted in an experimental plantation of CNR-IBAF of Porano, where since 1992 there has been a continuous monitoring of the interaction between trees of common and hybrid walnut with the following crops: wheat, clover and meadow. The objective was to bring to the conclusion the observations on the use of tree basimetric area (G), as an index for estimation of the relative yield of intercrops according to the trees growth. This research has confirmed the benefits of walnut Silvoarable systems, combining high tree growth rates and good intercrops yield. According to the collected data, various Silvoarable models are presented according to the tree growth rates and whose G, up to the harvesting age of the plantation, can be Abstract used for minimizing the competitive interactions for the solar radiation towards the intercrops. The second research part analyzed the relationship between the trees outside forest (TOF) and CAP, quantifying the SFP decrement in traditional agroforestry systems. This study was conducted combing GIS with aerial surveys of rural parcels. It was carried out in the regions of Veneto, Umbria and Lazio, and analyzed traditional agroforestry systems, with TOF in the parcels lined up along the borders, as well scattered across. In the study cases it was found a considerable reduction of the SFP, because TOF canopy reduces the eligible agricultural area; additionally, incorrect photointerpretation, in contrast with the official rules regulating the payment of farmers' grants, further reduces the SFP in agroforestry systems. Therefore, the current relationship between SFP and TOF strongly discourage farmers to the maintenance of these trees in their farmland. In the third part, the above results were validated through structured interviews to agronomists and foresters, the professionals in charge to promote innovative farming systems to agricultural stakeholders. The study sample compared two different socio-economic and agronomic realities of the northern (Veneto) and central (Umbria) Italy. The survey showed the total failure of 2.2.2 measure (First Establishment of novel agroforestry systems), depending on: i) inappropriate extension and research activities; and ii) lack of economic attractiveness of agroforestry systems, strongly linked to uncertainties and gaps in the regulation on the SFP modulation. Overall, the research work have showed that the current CAP is not able to promote the high potentialities of agroforestry systems for sustainable rural development, that would be strongly implemented throughout a judicious management of the environmental and productive benefits of trees outside forest.

Andreeva recently discussed several "challenges for research in poor countries" (Andreeva, 2012). Below is a list of some of these challenges and my comments. For many public health studies in low- or middle-income countries, population surveys are the only affordable means of data collection. Population surveys are valuable sources of health information. For example, surveys have estimated the prevalence, severity, and treatment of mental disorders in various countries, including Ukraine (WHO, 2004). But population surveys can be very expensive, so alternative approaches to data collection should not be overlooked. Some other methods are case control studies, ecologic studies, and qualitative research designs such as focus groups. A case control design was used by Donetsk State Medical University to investigate contraceptive practices and factors behind contraceptive preferences of Ukrainian women (Mogilevkina, 2003). For a case control study of diphtheria vaccine efficacy in Ukraine, demographic and vaccination data were gathered from health center records (Tsu, 2000). Focus group methods were used by the Ukraine Institute for Public Health Policy and others to investigate the obstacles to antiretroviral therapy perceived by HIV-infected injection drug users (Mimiaga, 2010) and in a separate study on the topics of everyday understanding of health and the factors influencing it (Abbott, 2006). Another challenge faced by survey scientists is related to the validity of self-reported data. Validity is central to all research. According to Bonita et al (2006, page 57), "A study is valid if its results correspond to the truth." Self-reports can be satisfactory data sources if investigators take sufficient care in their design and use (Schaeffer, 2003). For example, before conducting health surveys in low and middle-income countries with questionnaires that were developed for use in high-income countries, researchers may first want to use focus group interview methods to gauge what the survey questions mean to people in the target countries (Kitzinger, 1995). If necessary, focus groups can be used to help researchers to modify question wording appropriately. In any case, for many health measures, it is difficult to think of an alternative to self-reports. The recent finding that fewer teenagers in the United States are driving after drinking, for example, comes from risk behavior data collected from thousands of high school students through national surveys (Shults, 2012). Due to high subscription fees, many researchers in low- and medium income countries lack access to necessary literature. This is a serious obstacle but it has a partial, temporary solution. In 2002 the Access to Research in Health Programme (HINARI) was established by the World Health Organization in partnership with major publishers (http://www.who.int/hinari/en/ accessed 4 Oct 2012). This venture provides free or low cost online access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries. Some 8,500 journals and 7000 e-books (in 30 different languages) are now available to health institutions in more than 100 countries. To move access to global knowledge beyond HINARI, an international team of editors, researchers, and authors has proposed that WHO take the lead in championing the goal of "health information for all" (Godlee, et al., 2004). Besides HINARI, researchers in some developing countries have gained access to scientific literature through partnerships with foreign researchers as, for example, in projects supported by the Fogarty International Center of the US National Institutes of Health (http://www.fic.nih.gov, accessed 4 Oct 2012). For persons interested in tobacco control, an inventory of financial and structural resources to support global tobacco control research and research capacity in developing countries is available (Lando, et al., 2005). Many decisions in low and middle income countries are still opinion-based. Alas this is also all too often the case in the US and Europe. For example, little policy has developed in response to the growing threat from climate change to the health and the environment. The process from the discovery of scientific knowledge to its effects on human behavior is usually long and unpredictable. Current epidemiology training focuses on epidemiologic methods, with little attention on how the science of epidemiology is translated into effective health policy (Brownson, 1998, page 377). Actually, research findings always have some degree of uncertainty, and policy choices depend on many social, cultural, and economic factors, including people's opinions and beliefs. Fortunately, expert guidance is available on ways to communicate research findings to the public and policymakers that increase the chance that good science will result in good public health (Nelson, 2011; Remington, et al., 2011; Brownson, et al., 2011). A somewhat contrary view is that researchers are not responsible for the translation of their findings into public policy and should enter the political fray cautiously (Rothman & Poole, 1985). The golden standard of studies generating such evidence is randomized controlled trials. Bonita et al (2006, page 95) distinguish between various study designs by ranking their ability to provide evidence for causality between an exposure and a disease: "strong" for randomized controlled trials, "moderate" for cohort and case-control studies, and "weak" for cross-sectional and ecological studies. However, Steven N Goodman of Stanford University and Gerald J Dal Pan of the US Food and Drug Administration, speakers at the 2012 American College of Epidemiology Annual Meeting, indicated that the traditional hierarchy of scientific evidence may be too simple. They argued that experiments have more limits than generally appreciated, and evidence from observational studies can also be "golden".In any case, research conclusions have historically lacked widespread credibility in the scientific community until they have been confirmed by multiple studies using different study designs in different populations. They consider this as public health surveillance rather than data for testing research hypotheses about effects of the intended policy measures. I would agree that some surveys, such as the tobacco prevalence survey in several eastern European countries, including Ukraine (Andreeva, et al., 2010), are a type of public health surveillance. However, such data collection activities differ from traditional disease surveillance systems that detect and investigate new cases of notifiable diseases, including tuberculosis, measles, and others (Bonita, et al., 2006). For several decades, the US Agency for International Development has funded the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) that collect nationally-representative household data for a wide range of monitoring and evaluation indicators on population, health, and nutrition (http://measuredhs.com/accessed 3 Oct 2012). These surveys have been completed in Ukraine and a half dozen other countries of the former Soviet Union, and all DHS countries, especially ones with repeated surveys, have results that can be assessed with relevance to a health policy. I am reluctant to classify prevalence surveys as "descriptive" or "analytic" without more information about the specific survey. In the US, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveys--conducted annually in the 50 states with coordination and support from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--have been used for both description and analysis. Smart people from poor countries will definitely benefit from considerate reviews of their studies by more experienced researchers. A core principle of global health is that the knowledge and experience of every country, regardless of income level, is required for truly effective public health science and action. Journals have a mission, and they will publish work from any country if it fits their mission. Some journals explicitly invite submissions from developing countries including papers from authors whose mother language is not English. On the other hand, journals have major limits (Nordstrom, 2008). To protect their resources, they routinely reject some manuscripts without circulating them for external review because the editor determines they have little chance of acceptance. Most journals have no paid staff, and most peer reviewers are volunteers. An editor of one western journal has candidly discussed the challenges and opportunities of reviewing and publishing research manuscripts from developing countries (Malone, 2012).

Turumajanduse nurgakiviks on konkurents turuosaliste vahel. Turukonkurents toimib nii lokaalsel kui globaalsel tasandil, trendiga globaalsuse suunas. Euroopa Liidu liikmesriigina ja eurotsooni liikmena on siseturu mõiste ja mastaabid avardunud, hõlmates poolemiljardilise elanikkonnaga Euroopa ühisturgu. Lisaks Euroopa siseturule eksisteerivad arenevate maade turud, kuhu kaupu ja teenuseid turustada. Avar turuareaal pakub soodsaid ärivõimalusi, samas ka riske. Iga turuosaline või sinna pürgija peab analüüsima keskkonda, kus ta osaleb või kavatseb osaleda. Vaid kogutud andmebaasile tuginedes on võimalik langetada ratsionaalseid otsuseid, määrata firma positsioon turul ning firma konkurentsivõimet. Sellest johtuvalt peab käesoleva magistritöö autor töös käsitlevat teemat aktuaalseks. Perefirma OÜ Nittise konkurentsivõime uuring tugineb sellealastele teoreetilistele käsitlustlustele, mille kohaselt luuakse konkurentsivõime äristrateegiaga, mis tugineb makro- ja mikrokeskkonna analüüsil, kusjuures makrokeskond haarab globaaltasandit, asukohariiki ja tegevusharu; mikrotasand ettevõtet. Töös käsitletud ajaperiood 2005-2010 võimaldab jälgida Eesti jalatsituru arengu dünaamikat ja selles osalejaid. See on ajaperiood, mis sisaldab majandusbuumi ja majandussurutise aastaid. Vaadeldava perioodi esimene pool kulges majandustõusu lainel, saavutades oma kõrgtaseme 2007. aastal. Odav laenuraha, suhteliselt kõrged palgad soodustasid siseturu kasvu ja uute teenuste nõudlust. Suur kasum ja üle 70%-line kaubandusmarginaal muutsid jalatsite jaemüügituru atraktiivseks. Jalatsiturule sisenesid uued turuosalised. 2008. aastal tegutses jalatsite jaemüügiturul 20 firmat enam, võrreldes 2005. aastaga. Jalatsimüügi harus kasvasid 2007. aastal käibed, investeeringud, omakapital ja varade maht kordades, võrreldes baasaastaga 2005. Eesti jalatsiturul tegutsesid uuritaval ajaperioodil väike- ja keskmise suurusega ettevõtted. Ühtegi suurettevõtet ei osalenud. Ligi 73 % jalatsite jaemüügiga tegelevatest ettevõtetest olid 1-9 töötajaga. 2008. aastal oli 59 seda tüüpi ettevõtet, 2005. aasta 43 ettevõtte vastu. Majanduslangus avaldas mõju kogu jalatsiturule, kõige enam 1-9 ja 10-19 töötajaga firmade grupis, kus müügitulu vähenes 2009. aastal vastavalt 1,8 ja 2,4 korda, võrreldes 2008. aastaga. Kogu süsteemist vallandati üle veerandi töötajatest, turult lahkus kümmekond turuosalist. Jalatsiturg hakkas minetama oma atraktiivsust. Konkurentsi jäid püsima müügifirmad, kes olid suutelised kohanduma järsku muutunud ärikeskkonna tingimustega. 2008. aasta teisel poolel alanud majanduslangus jätkus drastilisemalt 2009. aastal. Alles 2010. aastal hakkas majandus tõusumärke ilmutama. OÜ Nittis suutis majanduslangusele vastu seista. Kogenud turuosalisena rakendas omanik talle omast, niinimetatud lihtsate reeglite turustrateegiat, mis võimaldas firmal säilitada konkurentsivõime, saavutada parem turupositsioon, võita turult lahkunud firmade arvelt kliente ning laiendada kaubandusketi kaupluste geograafilist ulatust. 2010. aasta algul avas OÜ Nittis kaks jalatsimüügi kauplust Leedu Vabariigis. Magistritöös kasutatud uuringu erimeetodid: intervjuud, kliendiküsitlused, võrdlus konkurentidega, SWOT-analüüs, uuritava firma majandusnäitajad, kinnitavad OÜ Nittise kaubaketi jätkuvat konkurentsivõimet Eesti jalatsiturul, kus ta omab soodsat turupositsiooni 6 kauplusega Tallinnas, 3 kauplusega Tartus, 1 kauplusega Pärnus ja Narvas. Olgu lisatud, et Läti Vabariigis töötab juba teist aastakümmet 13 OÜ Nittis kaupluseketi kauplust. OÜ Nittise turuposutsiooni ja konkurentsivõimet võivad pärssima hakata müügipersonali suhteliselt madalad palgad. Nende lahkumine firmast nõrgendab oluliselt tuumikkompetentsi taset. Müügipersonali kogemused, professionaalsus ja pühendumus klientide teenendamisele on OÜ Nittise üks olulisemaid edutegureid. ; The foundation of market economy is competitiveness between the market contestants. Market rivalry functions on the local as well as on the global level with the tendency towards globalness. Being a member country of the European Union and a member of the euro zone, the concept and range of the internal market have been expanding involving the common market of Europe and its population of half a billion habitants. Apart form the European internal market, there are markets of developing countries, where to distribute merchandise and service. A dimentional market range offers several advantageous business-opportunities as well as the risks. Each market contestant or an aspirant has to analyse the environment where he or she participates or intends to participate in. Only when relying on the determined data-base it is possible to adjudge rational decisions, assess the position of the company and its competitiveness at the market. Therefore the author of the present master's thesis considers the subject actual and relevant. The research of competitive position of the private limited company (PLC) Nittis Family business relies on the theoretical approaches of the marketing speciality, according to what the competitiveness created and which is based on the macro- and microenvironment analysis, whereas the macroenvironment includes the global level, the country of habitual residence and the line of business; while the microlevel involves the enterprise itself. The time period under discussion (from 2005 to 2010) in the thesis enables to observe the developmental dynamics and its participants on the Estonian footwear market. This is the period, which contains the years of the economic outburst and the economic depression. The first half of the period under discussion ran its course on the wave of the economic boost, obtaining its high level in 2007. Inexpensive loan money and relatively high wages contributed to the growth of the internal market and the requisition of new services. Substantial profits and the mercantile marginal over 70% made the footwear retailing market attractive. New market competitors entered the footwear market. In year 2008 there were 20 companies more than in 2005 trading on the footwear retailing market. The sales, investments, ownership capital and assets capacity in the footwear sale branch increased several times in comparison to the baseyear 2005. In Estonia, small and middle-sized enterprises traded on the footwear market during the time period under consideration. No major concerns participated. Nearly 73% of companies engaged in footwear retail sale held 1-9 employees. In 2008 there were 59 distinctive enterprises in contrast to 43 companies in year 2005. Economic recession impacted on the whole footwear market, most on the companies holding 1-9 and 10-19 employees, where the revenues from sales decreased in 2009 accordingly 1.8 and 2.4 times in comparison to the year 2008. Over a quarter of total labour force were discharged form the system and approximately ten market interested contestants left form the market. The footwear market began to forfeit its attraction. The sales enterprises remaining in the competition were able to conform with the sudden changes of the requirements of the business environment.The economic recression began in the second half of the year 2008 continued drastically in 2009. The economy started to reveal some indication of economic upgrading just only in 2010. The PLC Nittis managed to resist the economic recession. As being an experienced market contestant, the owner of the company engaged an intrinsic so-called simpleruled market strategy, which enabled the company to maintain its competitiveness, achieve better position at the market, obtain clients at the expence of the companies left from the market and expand the geographical range of the shops of chain-stores. In the beginning of 2012 the PLC Nittis opened two new footwear shops in the Republic of Lithuania. Various methods (interviews, customer enquiries, comparison to competitors, SWOT-analysis and the economic variables of the company under consideration) used in the inquiry of the master's thesis, affirm the continuous competitive ability of the PLC Nittis in the Estonian footwear market, where it holds a profitable marketposition with six shops in Tallinn, three shops in Tartu and one both in Pärnu and Narva. Furthermore, already for the second decade 13 shops of the PLC Nittis function in the Republic of Lithuania. The market position and competitive ability of the PLC Nittis might be restrained by the relatively low wages of the sales force. Their departure from the company diminishes essentially the level of the core competency. The experiences of the sales personnel, their professionalism and commitment to serving customers is one of the most important success factors of the PLC Nittis.

Los hechos políticos que protagonizó Turquía esta semana han generado confusión. Por un lado, concretó un acercamiento histórico con Armenia, un vecino en constante litigio. Por el otro, rechazó realizar un ejercicio militar regular junto con Israel, con quien mantiene desde hace décadas una alianza histórica. ¿Está Turquía realizando un cambio en su política exterior? ¿Se está produciendo un cambio en el equilibrio geopolítico de la región?Más cercaDesde hace días el nombre de Turquía viene colmando la sección "Internacionales" de diarios y revistas especializadas en todo el mundo. Y no es para menos: el proceso iniciado en setiembre de 2008 con la visita a Armenia del presidente turco Abdullah Gull para un partido de fútbol, derivó el pasado sábado 10 de octubre de 2009 en un histórico acuerdo firmado en Zurich que prevé la normalización de las relaciones entre ambos países.El acuerdo (firmado por el Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores armenio Edvard Nalbandian y su homólogo turco Ahmet Davutoglu) consiste en dos protocolos que estipulan un calendario para el establecimiento de relaciones bilaterales y la apertura de sus fronteras en un plazo de dos meses, a partir de la ratificación por los Parlamentos respectivos.Las gestiones de Estados Unidos, Rusia, Francia y Suiza tienen mucho que ver en que las Partes hayan podido sortear los obstáculos que los separaban, fundamentalmente vinculados al reconocimiento del Genocidio Armenio (inflingido por parte de los turcos entre 1915 y 1918), así como al retiro armenio de Nagorno-Karabakh, un enclave que mantienen "de facto" desde la guerra con su vecino Azerbaiján (y a causa de la cual Turquía cerró su frontera con Armenia en 1993, en apoyo a la reivindicación azerí).En ese sentido, se habría convenido que a los cuatro meses de ratificado el acuerdo se daría paso a la creación de una comisión conjunta que estudie el Genocidio Armenio (lo que podría dar lugar a un reconocimiento oficial turco), al tiempo que se habla de ciertos compromisos por parte del gobierno armenio en relación a Nagorno-Karabakh. Sin embargo, las reivindicaciones posteriores del primer ministro turco Recep Tayyip Erdogan y del presidente armenio Serz Sarksyan, sumado a las hostilidades de políticos opositores y las protestas de manifestantes nacionalistas en ambos países, evidencian que aún hay mucho camino por recorrer en este proceso.Más lejosA los pocos días Turquía volvió a sorprender al mundo con una noticia, si bien menos histórica, ciertamente inesperada. Las maniobras militares "Anatolia Tagle", fijadas para el lunes 12 de octubre (de las cuales también participarían fuerzas de OTAN, EEUU e Italia) fueron postergadas producto de la decisión de Ankara de no incluir en ellas a Israel. Dichas maniobras implicaban la prueba de los sistemas aéreos de defensa y de reposición en vuelo, así como la planificación de movimientos en el espacio turco fronterizo con Irán, Siria e Irak.El premier turco Erdogan justificó la decisión en lo que llamó "sensibilidades diplomáticas", atribuyendo la inconveniencia de actuar en conjunto "con los aviones que sobrevuelan Gaza". Los desencuentros entre Turquía e Israel vienen precedidos por el enfrentamiento acontecido entre el propio Erdogan y el presidente israelí Shimon Peres en el último Foro de Davos, a lo que luego se sumó la renuncia del ministro Davutoglu a la anunciada visita a Israel en Octubre, al serle rechazada la posibilidad de visitar Gaza.No obstante, fuentes oficiales israelíes intentaron restarle importancia a dicha decisión, transmitiendo que la alianza es histórica (desde inicios de la Guerra Fría) y estratégica para ambos, de allí que no está en peligro. Y si bien hay quienes en los últimos días adjudican la posición de Turquía a demoras en el suministro por parte de Israel de un material aeronáutico previamente convenido, resulta evidente que las relaciones bilaterales se encuentran en un mal momento. La mejor demostración de ello es que Turquía aún no ha repuesto su embajador desde que el anterior finalizó su período, hace ya varios meses.¿Más cerca o más lejos?La gran razón para la confusión de estos días radica en el sentido que tienen ambas acciones del gobierno turco. ¿Tienen relación entre sí? Y si la tienen, ¿se tratan de dos movimientos que van en la misma dirección o, por el contrario, se oponen uno al otro?La aceptación por parte de Turquía de entablar el proceso para armonizar relaciones con Armenia encuentra diversas motivaciones. En lo que hace a su propio interés, la reconciliación con el mundo armenio constituye una de los principales escollos para su futura adhesión a la Unión Europea, en donde la población mayoritariamente cristiana y la carga del "reconocimiento del genocidio" pesa, y mucho.Asimismo, es claro el deseo turco de asumir un mayor liderazgo en la región, de modo que no puede estar totalmente enemistado con un vecino que también tiene una importancia geo-estratégica: ante el conflicto de Rusia con Georgia, la ruta por Armenia se torna esencial para asegurar el aprovisionamiento de gas y petróleo. Similar motivación tienen Rusia y EEUU, de allí la presión que en esta fase de "detente" ejercieron para que se concrete el acuerdo; el primero consigue así reducir el poder geopolítico georgiano, al tiempo que EEUU también se asegura dicha ruta energética y un nuevo paso de tropas hacia Irán.Por su parte, las tensiones que viene experimentando con Israel se pueden explicar, ante todo, por un progresivo acercamiento que viene experimentando hacia sus vecinos en el sur y sud-este: Siria, Irán e Irak, e incluso más allá, como Arabia Saudita o Sudán. Hay quienes dicen que se trata de un "regreso a la región", ya sea por una cuestión de índole ideológica basada en el ascenso de las tendencias islamistas en un Estado históricamente laico, o por el ya mencionado deseo de recobrar el liderazgo en la región (en un momento en que Irán recoge toda la atención).Pero también puede explicarse por el temor del gobierno a dejar de ser percibido como "islamista" cuando se acerca demasiado a Europa, de allí la necesidad de realizar una política pendular inversa. Es decir, para atenuar tanto "Occidente", el actual gobierno turco necesita apelar a un poco más de "Oriente".De allí que cuando el gobierno turco se decide a armonizar relaciones con Armenia (con sentido hacia "Occidente") le resulta por demás efectivo para revertir esa imagen un choque con Israel (con sentido hacia "Oriente"). Por supuesto, la defensa de la causa palestina y las fricciones con Israel siempre recogen buenas ganancias políticas en el mundo islámico.Ambos movimientos contienen un mismo sentido, pues Turquía con ellos consigue acrecentar su rol de líder regional. Y ambos contienen sentidos contrarios, logrando así equilibrar su imagen política tanto ante el liderazgo europeo como ante la opinión pública local.¿Implica esto un cambio en la política exterior turca? Claro que lo es, se trata de un re-posicionamiento estratégico que viene sucediendo de manera progresiva desde hace años. ¿Puede llegar a cambiar el balance estratégico del Medio Oriente? Parece poco viable, pero Philip Gordon y Omer Taspinar ("Winning Turkey: How America, Europe, and Turkey Can Revive a Fading Partnership", 2009) ya advierten en su libro sobre el riesgo de "perder Turquía". Por lo pronto, aparenta ser más una cuestión de diplomacia mediática que de verdadera intencionalidad política de dar un viraje a sus alianzas.No olvidemos que, al fin y al cabo, se trata de un país que está acostumbrado a estar en una constante encrucijada histórica-cultural: con un pie en Europa, con el otro en Asia.Licenciado en Estudios Internacionales. FACS. Universidad ORT - Uruguay.

NDI President Derek Mitchell and NDI Board Chairman Secretary Madeleine Albright talk about her new book Hell and Other Destinations, and her experiences as Secretary of State. She reflects on U.S. foreign policy, democratic trends, and her hopes for the future.

This podcast was recorded May 27, 2020, prior to demonstrations in support of racial equality across the United States.

Find us on: SoundCloud | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | Google Play

Derek Mitchell: Hello. Welcome to DemWorks. My name is Derek Mitchell, president of the National Democratic Institute.
We indeed are honored to once again to have Secretary Albright join us. Madam Secretary first, thank you again very much for doing this. Do you want to share some opening thoughts? I want to turn it over to you. Perhaps some things that have happened since we last got together about a month back.
Secretary Albright: Terrific. Thank you very much, Derek. Two important meetings I've participated in the past weeks. What was very interesting, it was the ... First was a virtual hearing convened by the house foreign affairs committee. They couldn't have testimony, so this was a briefing, and I did it alongside Derek and Dan Twining from IRI, and the subject was authoritarianism, disinformation and good governance during COVID-19. And this was the first time that the committee had done this kind of a hearing, And I think it's a very important signal that they chose to focus on the subject of democracy. And I think that it's a great tribute to NDI that we were the first organization asked to debrief the committee.
What is very, I think, positive is that leaders in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats recognize that good governance is critical to responding to the pandemic. And they know that NDI therefore has a key role to play in helping the world overcome the challenge and others like it.
DM: We discussed it at that last town hall, featuring our chairman about how she was on the cusp of releasing a new memoir about her life. This one being about her very eventful life after leaving her job as the first woman vice secretary of state. Hell and Other Destinations was released in mid April. During my time in doors last month, I read her book and it really is funny, a funny and fascinating read. So my intention today is to open up another conversation with our chairman and do so first by asking some questions based on themes from her life that she discusses in her book.
You said in your book that everyone should write a memoir. Why do you say that? And do you, or did you, have you kept a journal yourself?
SA: Well let me say this. I have thought, because basically I come from an academic background that when one looks at what happened in a certain period of history, it's very important to read people's memoirs. Now what I have found as I've analyzed memoirs, and I have, is that people write it from a different perspective. And so it's important because often we disagree on the context or what we did or what our role was. But I think it is interesting to kind of have the memoirs and it's really worth the doing. And I think especially people that have been in public positions, but everybody, I think in terms of ...
So let me just say, I have tried over the years to keep a journal. And I haven't really, because at a certain stage I was made much ... Obviously when I was young and had met a lot of people, I thought, "Isn't this great. I have to write about it." And then it always kind of stops after one month. Then, I did actually not keep a journal when I was in the government, because as we know ... I don't know if you remember, everything was being subpoenaed. But I had a lot of scratchy notes. And then what happened as I was writing Madam Secretary initially, was that when I found the schedule it was like the Rosetta Stone, because I could identify what the scratchy notes actually has something to do with. But embarrassingly, my mind would wander, and all of a sudden in the middle of my scratchy notes it was say, "Buy yogurt." And so I was multitasking even then, but I didn't keep a journal. And in many ways I wish I did, but there are so many records of the kinds of things that we all did together that I think my memoirs have been fairly complete.
DM: I felt one of the most poignant chapters in the book was the story about how you discovered your maternal grandmother's journal. It was about five or six years ago while you're going through your father's artifacts. And it turned out your grandmother had been killed in the Holocaust in 1942, and the journal, you have excerpts with the journal in the back of the book and it was written as a kind of dialogue she had ... She wanted to have with your mother and maybe with you while you're all in England. It also reads like kind of a lonely mother who wanted to connect with an absent family alone and isolated and Czechoslovakia, as things happened around her. Dangerous world was swirling in 1942 ... Well, really it started in 42 for her in that journal.
Can you talk a bit about the experience of discovering this journal, and through it your grandmother, so late and what it meant to you? Because we're also being isolated with things swirling out our doors, but also just what it meant to you to discover this and discover your grandmother so late.
SA: Well, thank you for asking that. And I ... Just for people that don't know my story, I was raised a Catholic, married and Episcopalian, and found out I was Jewish. So I can have my religious discussions sitting in a corner. But basically, I did not know about my Jewish background until 1996. And I had gotten a letter from somebody that had the names of the villages and my grandparents' names and dates right, and that was just as I was being vetted to be secretary of state, and the White House lawyer asked all the questions about taxes and nannies and stuff, but then he said, "We always ask this question of everybody. Is there anything you'd like to tell us that we didn't ask you?" And I said, "Well, it's perfectly possible I'm of Jewish background." And they said, "So what? The president is not antisemitic."
And it was only later when I was already an office that I was visited by some reporters who started giving me this disgusting index cards. These Nazis were very good record keepers and they had names of my relatives that have been sent to concentration camps. So to get to the journal part of it is my parents, we left Czechoslovakia in March, 1939, or escaped frankly. My father was in the Czechoslovak diplomatic service, and we escaped to England. And they ... When I think about all the things that happened, I find it harder and harder to get my head around it.
My parents were in their 30s, they left their families behind and went to England, where they were isolated in many different ways. We came back and I won't go through the whole story, but my father died in 1997 and he had lots of papers, and then my mother moved to Washington and she brought all his stuff with her. And when she died, all of a sudden all of it got transferred to me. And I had some hesitation in looking at anything, frankly, because of how the memories, but then what happened is when I became a public official diplomatic security moved into in my garage and were around all the time and there were all these boxes. And they said, "You've got to put these in storage." So I put all these boxes into storage and I didn't look at them, and it wasn't until 2015 that I had to find something and I went to the storage and I start poking through the boxes. And all of a sudden, there's this old envelope, and inside it is a diary. A journal. And it kind of blows my mind.
I look at it, obviously it's a ... And it's from my grandmother, and it is something that she wrote to ... They were letters to my mother describing what was going on. And it was kind of an interesting mixture of just day to day kind of things. "I did this, I washed my hair and I went shopping." And then all of a sudden it began to say things like, "They're talking about Aryans and non Aryans. I've never heard that distinction," she says. And goes through the kinds of things that the Jews in the town we're not able to shop in a variety of places. Oh, they had to give up all their warm clothes to the Nazi soldiers, and ... Just stunning. And in the middle it would say things, "How was it [Mudlanka 00:08:45]?" Which was me. "She's so cute." And it just was unbelievable.
And it was really like a message in a bottle where all of a sudden it's hearing from a previous generation in terms of their hopes and their wishes. And obviously in the most incredibly complex time. And the other thing I try to figure out, how my mother even got this and I've tried to put together what the path of it was and how stunned she must've been when it showed up. And so I have translated it, and it is in the book. But it's really very meaningful and it has hope in it, which I think is such an important part. And one of my messages just generally is that we can't control everything around us. We can only control our behavior. And I think that that's something that also came through in my grandmother's journal.
DM: It also is you talked about the various identities you have in a way as a Catholic Episcopalian Jew, in terms of heritage. And that issue of identity is a big one that we work with at NDI. And there's a big question for nations nowadays, given your past and your family, that of your family, how has the question of identity shaped you?
SA: Well, I have definitely been a lot of different things. As a child, we spent the war in England then went back to Czechoslovakia briefly, and then my father was made ambassador to Yugoslavia. I think some of you've heard me tell this. The little girl in the national costume that gave flowers at the airport, that's what I did for a living. My father didn't want me going to school with communists, so I had a governess. And then I got ahead of myself, and as people know in Europe, you have to be a certain age to get into the next level. So my parents sent me to school in Switzerland, where I was finally told how I should spell my name, because my mother used to pronounce it [Mudlan 00:00:10:44]. And so anyway, I have the French spelling and I learned to speak French. And then we come to the United States.
And so I was recently asked to describe myself in six words, and it is, worried optimist, problem-solver, and grateful American. And I think those are my identities and I'm grateful to be an American, but I'm also grateful for the background that I've had in terms of trying to understand how other people see themselves. I do think identity is important. I think we all want to know who we are. We may get surprised, but it's worth it knowing. What I don't like, and this is what troubles me and I wrote about this in my previous book on fascism is when my identity hates your identity, because that then is obviously very divisive. And it's one thing to be proud of your identity, it's another, hyper nationalism, which we're seeing that is undercutting everything. And we know that the virus knows no borders. So there are an awful lot of paradoxes that are going on now in terms of wanting to know who you are, but not thinking that you're better than everybody else.
And my, as I describe, authoritarian leaders and fascists, I begin with Mussolini. It's a matter of the leader identifying himself. And by the way, they're all his, with one group at the expense of another and makes them scapegoats. And that's why I'm very troubled by the divisions that are being exacerbated now.
DM: There's individual identity and there's national identity. And the national identity, as you say, that's most pernicious is an exclusive identity, rather than an inclusive identity, which is what we're all about. We're all about an inclusive identity. We're all treated equally. And these authoritarians are about identifying those exclusive identities, us and them, that tear countries apart and create the instability and insecurity that results. So this is a key part of what we do, I think absolutely.
During the writing process, we you able to identify the moment in your life when you knew what your life purpose was? At what point did you know what Mark you wanted to leave in this world?
SA: And it's a hard question to answer, because I do think that one of the things that was a motivating factor for me growing up was that I was, and am, a grateful American, and wanted to give back in some form. I also ... My father had, obviously, a great influence on me. So did my mother, and my father kept saying that Americans are taking democracy for granted. We had just left the country of our birth twice. Once because of the Nazis and then because of the communists. And the fragility of democracy. And so I looked at trying to figure out, in looking back, what were the different methods that I thought I could use to give back to America?
By the way, it never occurred to me that I would be secretary of state. There's some people who think I planned that. Never. But I do think that I wanted to have some kind of a role where I was able to talk about the necessity of supporting democracy. And I got fascinated by the UN because that's what brought us to America. And so kind of looking at institutional structures, but it never, never occurred to me. Nor did it occur to me, frankly, that I would be able to have a post secretary of state life, where I was able to put together the various things that I was interested in.
What I tried to do always is to make whatever I was doing next more interesting than what I'd done before. Not easy if you've been secretary of state, but the reason I wanted to write this book was to show how the various things that I got involved in related to each other and how I learned from one thing to another. My greatest talent, frankly, is dot connection, of trying to figure out how one thing relates to another.
I do want to talk about one specific moment that's so stands out. My favorite thing to do is to give naturalization certificates at the ceremonies. And so the first time I did it was July 4th, 2000 at Monticello, and I'm handing out a certificate and I hear this man. He goes away and he says, "Can you believe I'm a refugee, and I just got my naturalization certificate from the secretary of state?" And I go up to him and I say, "Can you believe that a refugee is secretary of state?" And I so believe in what America stands for and what we can do to be helpful to others, which is why I say that at this moment, the statue of Liberty is weeping.
DM: Our research in Ukraine has uncovered historical memory as a significant target of Russian information attacks. Ukrainians appear to be vulnerable to attacks that speak to evoke nostalgia for the economic stability of the Soviet period. These attacks exploit an actual democratic challenge for Ukraine, which is an economy that is not working for all citizens. In the US, what vulnerabilities do you worry similar information attacks could seek to exploit.
SA: I do think that I have been ... I love history. When I teach at Georgetown, I always try to put everything into historical context. And I have to say what I was just doing before we started this discussion was watching a program about a project in the United States about slavery. And there's ... The New York Times was doing something called 16 19, and there were some very strong arguments on Morning Joe this morning about this, between those who recollect history differently, or are trying to use it in particular ways for political movement, which we do. And I think people do that in terms of understanding what their history means.
And then one of the people there said, "History is to be argued about," which I find interesting because you kind of think, "Okay, well, we know what history is." But it goes back to your first question, Derek, about writing memoirs. Because people have different ideas of their history. I think the question is, do you have a society where you can dispute the history? And the Ukrainian one is clearly unbelievably complicated, in terms of that a modern Russia comes out of Ukraine, and that that relationship and Ukraine itself is a complicated country in terms of East and West and religion, and the aspect of communism that gave people a certain sense of understanding what the system was. They might not have gotten the kinds of things ...
Not everybody just wants the freedom to talk. Some of them want to be able to what their history is about. Are they going to have retirement? What group do they belong to? Can they send their kids to school? And I found this in a lot of research that I did about central and Eastern Europe at the time, right after the fall of the wall. What is it that the people thought that they ... What was communism and what were the possibilities of democracy? And I do think that Ukraine is one of the more complex countries, and the fact that it has been invaded, and the fact that the economic situation is something that is being pushed by the Russian hacking and the way that they operate, and their way of trying to divide us and divide Ukrainians from each other.
DM: Rebuilding a United Europe was one of the success stories of the second part of the 20th century. The last few years have seen the foundations of Europe shake with Brexit and the rise of authoritarian populace. How do we ensure that the European project continues as a liberal democratic one?
SA: I think that it is something that I ... I keep going back, trying to figure out what went wrong. Why did this happen? And I think partially we didn't appreciate enough the problems of societies that had been under communism for 50 years, and that it was much ... We spent a lot of time, I think, with a lot of the wonderful dissidents and intellectuals, and didn't think enough about how it affected the people that had had jobs. I mentioned that a little bit. And I think that also there are the issues now of this identity and the hyper nationalism, and that has been created to some extent in Europe, by the differences in the economic lives of, initially, Northern and Southern Europe, and trying to figure out why some were doing better than others, which then did lead to the fact that there were some leaders like Orban and the Poles that started blaming the other. And that was the most evident in many ways in why Brexit happened.
So these are big trends. I happen to believe in a European Union, but I think that as a structure, it also needs some fixing in terms of how it works with the different economic situations in the central and eastern European countries.
DM: In your book, you speak about how you dealt with misogyny as you progressed in your career. Can you share what helped to keep you steadfast in fighting this prejudice?
SA: I think that what is interesting ... And I often say that I went to college sometime between the invention of the iPad and the discovery of fire, but here it was a women's college. And basically we were told by our commencement speaker to get married and raise children. And I think that what I've been trying to do is to understand why women, why we're so hard on ... Tough on each other in terms of being very judgmental or finding our own inadequacies and other women. And so I have been very much for having ... Creating groups of women that can support each other.
And that is why I think it is so important, the kind of things that NDI is doing, in terms of working with women, to make sure that they are participants in society, run for office, and are respected. And I'd love talking about the fact now that the countries that are doing best on dealing with the coronavirus are ones that are run by women. New Zealand, Taiwan, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Iceland. And I think trying to make clear what the characteristics are of women that make that possible in terms of multitasking, of caring, not setting their children against each other, but you have to keep ... I do think that what is important is for women to support each other, and so that you're not the only woman in the room.
DM: Sometimes moments of crisis and trial like this pandemic lead to better things. What are your hopes in that regard? And also what is the significance of today's pin?
SA: My hope, this is where my optimism comes from, our young people. I love learning from my students, and students that are particularly interested in foreign policy and diplomacy. Many of whom have traveled and they speak different languages and they certainly are tech literate. And I think that they question ... I think the important part for all of us as a democracy organization is to make sure that they participate, that they do vote, that they are interested in the institutional structures in the countries where they are. But that is definitely what gives me hope. And not ...
And I think it's very important, and I say this wherever I can, that democracy is not a spectator sport. It is something that the people need to be involved in. They need to be informed. They need to be respected. And I think the other part that I often talk about, and this is so true of NDI activities, is to spend time with people with whom you disagree and try to figure out where they're coming from, and understand what their needs are, and have a dialogue with civil society, and then understand the various institutions that are important. But definitely what makes me hopeful, our young people.
DM: On this issue of hopes of how moments of crisis and trial can lead to better things, I do think that's a very important question. I really hope that moments of trial by fire are sometimes very important, to set priorities to remember what's important, and to tell you how precarious things always are. I think we can get kind of complacent about things, as we are as a country, or we as individuals, that everything is going to be simply easy. I'm sure it's not easy for any of us. I'm sure many people have gone through lots of trials in their lives, as we all have. But crises can be moments where we focus on how ... Okay, we take stock of where our priorities are, and what kind of choices we want to make, which is what Madame Secretary said. Not just ... Crisis don't just happen to you, you also have a choice in how you respond to that crisis, both individually and as a collective, as a country, as a unit.
So I do think it's an opportunity and I'm certainly seeing that NDI of having better communication and doing more to force change, even potentially in culture because of this moment that's quite different than we've ever experienced. So we should be thinking in those terms. What are the things that we can do to take advantage of this moment, even when there's a lot of stress and anxiety? To take advantage of the opportunity as well. And that's my hope for all of us at NDI, again, as an organization and individually, that we can do that. And I think we can come out better on the back end if we go through it together on those terms.
SA: One of my heroes was Harry Truman. He was my first American president. We came to the United States, November 11th, 1948. He is the one that understood, to a great extent, America's role in the world, a democracy. And understand linking domestic to foreign policy. But I think there's so many other people that I have admired. I admire the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Masaryk, who married an American. And the first Czechoslovak constitution was modeled on the American one with one difference. It had a women's rights in it in 1918.
And so I think that one can have more than one hero, and I think it's important to point them out and to understand that people have gone through very difficult periods before. And I do think that what is important is to really be proud of things that we can do, and the thing that I personally am proudest of, because it put things together and how I used representing the United States was what we were able to do to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. And going there with President Clinton made a big difference cause they kept saying, "We were just there. We are so grateful to the United States."
DM: Well Madam Secretary, let me just close the book conversation with a quote from the book that I saw that I just want to share with everybody that you say at the end. I think it's in the acknowledgements at the end. The central theme of this book is about how people of all descriptions can work together for common goals against the background of accelerating history. It is about trying to make sense of the world we have while attempting to contribute to something better. Madam Secretary and everybody out there, stay safe, be well. Thank you all. Have a good day, and we'll talk again soon.
SA: Thank you so much for everything that you do. Thank you.
DM: Please visit our website at www.ndi.org. Thanks very much.

NDI Board Chairman Secretary Madeleine Albright



Derek Mitchell & Secretary Madeleine Albright on her past and democracy's future

Democracy (General), Podcast Listen Secretary Albright Madeleine AlbrightCountries: All Regions

This book examines the destinations and sites that are being created for tourists, as well as for local people within an urban regeneration context, with a particular focus on tourism's relationship to urban regeneration and cultural development. It examines the impact of such developments on a local sense of place, heritage and identity. It examines how far, arts and artistic quality/integrity is compromised by being used as a tool for regeneration. It examines if global/local debates can be resolved within the context of regeneration, and how. These issues and others are exemplified using a number of international case studies in North and South America, as well as in Europe and the UK. Chapter 1 examines the issues and problems inherent in implementing urban regeneration projects and highlights the increasingly important role that culture and tourism play in the process. Chapter 2 examines the increasingly important role of creativity in urban regeneration. Chapter 3 examines the regeneration of new or less familiar areas of cities, and their development for tourism purposes. Chapter 4 examines mixed-use developments in city fringe areas, especially those with culturally diverse or ethnic populations. Chapter 5 examines the development of ethnoscapes or those areas of cities with a high concentration of ethnic minorities, and analyses the way in which multiculturalism has become an increasingly attractive selling point for city tourism. Chapter 6 examines some of the difficulties of interpreting and commemorating spaces of dissonant heritage in black heritage sites in New Jersey, USA. Chapter 7 examines the complexities that exist within large-scale, mixed-use development projects through the example of the newly developed Waterfront City of Odaiba in Tokyo, Japan. Chapter 8 examines the role of major sporting events in urban regeneration, tourism development, image enhancement and social inclusion. Chapter 9 examines the role of the Olympic Games in the regeneration of U.S. cities. Chapter 10 examines the role of the cultural industries in the regeneration of former industrial cities, focusing in particular on Lowell, Massachusetts in New England, USA. Chapter 11 examines how Chicago, a city in the USA that previously was dependent on the manufacturing industry, has sought to improve its economic position and raises its national and international profile via locally-driven strategies focused on facilitating the physical, economic and cultural restructuring of its downtown area. Chapter 12 examines the Avenue of the Arts in Philadelphia, USA, as an example of a project that has been largely successful due to charismatic leadership, dynamic fund-raising campaigns and coordinated public and private partnerships. Chapter 13 examines the problems and the potential benefits of waterfront developments in the context of regeneration. Chapter 14 examines the changing role of dockland cities and urban regeneration strategies, focusing in particular on case studies of Liverpool and Cardiff in the UK. Chapter 15 examines the use of interpretative planning in the context of Recife, Brazil. In conclusion, the richness, creativity, innovation and ambition of regeneration projects is indicated in a wide range of contexts. But cultural, tourism or urban development, cannot compensate for economic decline, environmental decay or social unrest. They can only alleviate some of the problems and tensions, and give new hope to cities. It would be misguided to suggest that there could be a 'checklist' for all cities hoping to embark on a 'successful' regeneration scheme, especially given that similar schemes can easily fail in different contexts. However, several factors seem to emerge as being rather critical to the future of regeneration. Whatever the context - be it Europe, the USA, Asia, Australasia - the issues and dilemmas surrounding cultural regeneration are broadly similar. Pessimists might conclude that regeneration is just another 'flash-in-the-pan' phenomenon that has helped to plug the gaps in economic and social decline. However, it is argued that within the academic/practitioner community, there is excitement, dynamism and great hope in the future for the phenomenon of regeneratio

Wortlaut des am 12. September 1990 in Moskau zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, der DDR und den Vier Mächten (Frankreich, Vereinigtes Königreich, Sowjetunion, Vereinigte Staaten) geschlossenen Vertrages, der die Vereinigung Deutschlands mit endgültigen Grenzen besiegelt und die Verantwortlichkeiten der 4 Alliierten in bezug auf Berlin und Deutschland als Ganzes beendet. Dem Vertrag angefügt sind: (1) Vereinbarte Protokollnotiz zur Berücksichtigung von Sicherheitsinteressen aller Vertragsparteien (UdSSR) durch Deutschland; (2) Gemeinsamer Brief der deutschen Außenminister an die Außenminister der anderen Vertragsparteien; (3) Erklärung des Bundesaußenministers bei der Unterzeichnung; (4) Erklärung des Bundeskanzlers

Стаття присвячена дослідженню та визначенню основних напрямків розвитку ринку гнучкої упаковки в світі та в Україні; процесу впровадження європейських і світових пакувальних тенденцій в українських реаліях за допомогою впливу виставкових галузевих заходів. Для досягнення мети розглянуті особливості і роль ринку упаковки, значення пакувальних матеріалів у розвитку світового господарства, маркетингова сутність гнучкої полімерної упаковки, її переваги у використанні, а також стан і розвиток індустрії м'якої упаковки в Україні. Визначено шляхи розповсюдження дифузії світових пакувальних тенденцій на український ринок упаковки, зокрема використання галузевих виставок як маркетингового інструменту політики комунікацій промислових підприємств. Наведено сучасні актуальні фактори розвитку європейської та світової пакувальної індустрії та визначено основні проблеми застосування таких інновацій на ринку упаковки України, а також можливі перспективи впровадження світових тенденцій українськими виробниками гнучкого пакування. ; The article is devoted to the research and determination of the main directions of development of the market of flexible packaging in the world and in Ukraine; to the process of implementation of European and world packaging trends in Ukrainian realities through the influence of exhibition industry events. To achieve the goal, features and the role of the packaging market, the importance of packaging materials in the development of the world economy, the marketing essence of flexible polymer packaging, its advantages in using, the state and development of the soft packaging industry in Ukraine were considered.Today, the packaging industry is one of the most important business areas around the world. Each product gets to the consumer or place of its use in the package. At the same time, packaging products are used for almost any product. Therefore, it significantly depends on the state of their production and consumption in the regional markets. Consequently, it can be argued that the Ukrainian packaging market is under the influence of global factors in the development of the world economy.In order to meet the demand of the external market and at the same time to be competitive, national companies need to take on the experience of international, in particular European packaging companies. In Europe, the packaging market is developing dynamically and it began to be actively formed much earlier than in the territory of the former USSR. The article defines an imbalance between the Ukrainian and international packaging market, and identifies specific problems of the industry on a national scale.Since independence, the attitude of producers, sellers and consumers towards packaging has changed in Ukraine. Now the Ukrainian packaging has a functional application, and the consumer of the product knows all its economic, ergonomic, environmental properties, the period of its storage and use. This was due to the emergence in the country of modern packaging, made of modern materials, in most cases also Ukrainian production. Instead, high-quality packaging is produced using the technological know-how and equipment of world leaders of foreign companies. In this case, it is often necessary to apply imported raw materials.Now in the conditions of competition, the Ukrainian packaging market began to focus on the trends of world packaging markets, in particular on European ones. In Ukraine, the predominance of ideology of marketing over the ideology of increasing the volume of production, regardless of its market demand, began to emerge. This has resulted in an increase in packaging production and the emergence of thousands of different types of packaging from modern packaging materials using technology and equipment from world leaders.One of the important advantages of packaging in the current markets is its variety in all possible aspects: form, size, materials, mass, color, technology, etc. An objective assessment of packaging from various materials in relation to its economic and environmental attractiveness gives a comparison of material consumption and energy costs for its production per unit of packaged products. The best grades have a flexible package.In the group of soft polymeric packaging of single-layer films made of polyethylene and polypropylene, multilayer (3-8 layers) of various polymers, aluminum foil, paper, decorated with flexographic or rotogravure printing, in Ukraine there are up to 100 enterprises of different production capacity, but it is possible to allocate the main players of the market.The main Ukrainian manufacturers of flexible polymer materials and flexible packaging:1. Volyn region: Lutskhim.2. Khmelnitsky region: Sirius Extrusion.3. Zhytomyr region Grief: Flexibles Ukraine.4. Kherson region: Almateya.5. Kyiv region: Tandem, Ithac, Pentopack, Aventine, Plastmodern, Ukrplastik.6. Dnieper region: Mega Pack MonoPack.7. Kharkiv region: Deltana, Nargus, Aris.An important competitive factor in the packaging market is its safety. The problem of production, regulation and control of safety and quality of products is directly related to the system of technical regulation in Ukraine.The organizational and normative basis of the system of technical regulation in Ukraine does not meet the requirements of a market economy, the main provisions of the legislation of the European Union and the World Trade Organization, and as a result does not promote economic competitiveness, complicates the introduction of new technologies and innovations, does not fully protect the Ukrainian market from low-quality products and hinders the international exchange of goods.Ukraine has not yet formed and no declared state policy in the field of packaging. Ukraine's packaging industry is self-regulated in a market economy with the help of information support of several professional associations.The development of international economic relations should force national packagers to introduce European and world standards and innovative packaging solutions in order to maintain and enhance competitiveness on both the domestic and foreign markets.The world packaging industry is one of the largest, diversified and competitive sectors of the global economy that is developing rapidly and steadily.In the future, the greatest growth will be observed in the sectors of packaging for food and beverages. This is facilitated by technological innovations, changes in the cost price of products, environmental initiatives. But one of the most important reasons is the increase in the middle class and the growth of incomes in developing countries.Raising living standards leads to an increase in consumption of consumer goods, as increased use of packaging for these products.For the world packaging market, it is important not only how quickly technologies are improved for the production of packaging and packaging products, but also how quickly they are diffused.Thanks to modern communications, opportunities for regular exchange of technological developments at world exhibitions, manufacturers of packaging equipment open up new markets and opportunities for themselves.The development of packaging in the world depends on the demand for it, which is constantly increasing. The reason for this is globalization as a kind of economic integration between companies and countries, which leads to the merger of individual national markets into one global market. Its catalyst is international trade. As a result, consumers in a variety of regional markets are faced with numerous new products and their packaging. In such conditions, globalization incives manufacturers of packaging products to find innovative technological solutions aimed at increasing competitiveness not only on the national but also on external markets.In Ukraine there is a small number of national manufacturers of flexible packaging, so the main players will set trends to the entire Ukrainian packaging market, while pursuing their own economic motives and in order to meet the demand abroad.One of the ways to take over the experience of international manufacturers and learn about the latest developments in the field of packaging is international exhibitions. They are a powerful marketing tool in the industrial market.For Ukrainian manufacturers of flexible packaging the most relevant are international European industry exhibitions. It is in Europe that significant exhibition events are devoted to the packaging industry and technology. For Ukraine, the European market is currently the most attractive in terms of export development, and European exhibitions can reach a huge number of potential consumers. If the firm is aimed at developing and increasing its competitiveness, it must be present at sectoral exhibitions, thus changing and shifted the entire national market.At the time of the writing of this work, the latest closing event in the field of the packaging industry was the FachPack - September 25-27, 2018.According to the materials provided by the organizers of the exhibition, about two thousand exhibitors of various sizes took part in the event, including Ukrainian companies Aris and Aventine. The exhibition was attended by 45,000 participants, including representatives of both small and large industrial businesses.On the FachPack exhibition site, the main trends that have emerged at this event are in open access: minimization of material and energy resources in packaging production for many years will determine the competitiveness of the business as the main trend in the development of modern packaging; increasing the informativeness of the package and the convenience of use make the relationship between consumers and the producer of the product understandable and trustworthy; the safety of packaging for humans and the environment at all stages of its life cycle is a guarantee of improvement of the life of the population and a thrifty attitude to natural resources; the individualization of goods and products remains relevant; the attention is paid to the means and technologies of utilization of packaging from polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, foil; open to everyone: in the design of flexible packaging there is an increasing number of transparent windows, cutouts, through which one can see or feel the product to the end user; the use of natural, natural texture in the design of flexible packaging, the widespread use of craft paper.As a result of the research demands of consumers of quality characteristics of packaging, noted the emergence of "mythical" trends that are set unsubstantiated and often technically incorrect beliefs visitors, such as environmental, biodegradable packaging, and also false claims of "less harmful" material. The problem is that people have realized the negative impact of their activities on the planet, but they are involved in superficial propaganda on the issue of environmental friendliness, without deepening the technical aspects of this issue.The main mistake of packaging consumers is the belief in the thesis that paper and bioplastics are more environmentally friendly than plastic. People, who are relatively indirectly connected with the packaging industry, believe that the paper package is more environmentally friendly, because it decomposes faster than plastic. But nobody thinks about how cardboard and paper production affects the nature, which pollutes water bodies and causes deforestation.Bioplastics is made from a material of plant origin, which is actually relatively quickly decomposed. But this process occurs only under certain conditions. In the European market, trends in bioplast packaging development will be justified and in fact relevant, but as far as Ukraine is concerned, there are currently no conditions for thoroughly sorting and further processing of packaging waste. In this case, the whole nature of the so-called biopacket is lost - they are not able to decompose on the general landfill next to other materials.In the domestic market of Ukraine, not all European trends will be relevant and feasible in the implementation due to deficiencies in the state regulation of the packaging industry and the unsatisfactory state of the regulatory framework, especially as regards the sorting and processing of garbage. If the Ukrainian producer is more focused on exports to developed countries, the trend towards biodegradable materials can significantly increase the company's profitability.So the ways of diffusion of world packaging tendencies on the Ukrainian packaging market are determined, especially using of exhibitions as a marketing tool of the communications policy of industrial enterprises. The actual factors of development of the European and world packaging industry are presented. The main problems of application of such innovations in the packaging market of Ukraine are determined. Also, possible prospects for the implementation of world trends by Ukrainian manufacturers of flexible packaging are determined.

Inhaltsangabe: Academics, students, the media and the public have been increasingly drawn to China and India in recent years. Both countries were considered sleeping giants and are now turning into the motors of global economic growth. China and India are both ancient civilizations with a rich history and were among the largest economic powers until European colonization in the 19th century. After Indian independence in 1947 and the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 both countries shared the view that economic development should be achieved through a self-sustaining economy led and controlled by the government. In the following decades the share of Chinese and Indian global trade decreased significantly. Economic reform in China and India in 1978 and 1991 respectively resulted in an increasing integration into global markets and triggered large economic growth. However China and India differ in many ways. On the one hand China started its reforms 13 years earlier than India. Due to early establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ), strong connections with oversea Chinese in Taiwan and the abundance of cheap labor China was able to position itself as the manufacturing center of the world. India on the other side still lacks the degree of integration in global markets, and the structure of labor and bankruptcy laws, red-tape and poor infrastructure are just some obstacles for further Indian development. In addition, India and China are built on different approaches of governance. India is a democracy which makes it more difficult to introduce pragmatic laws, yet easier to absorb exogenous shocks. China on the other side is solely ruled by the Communist Party of China. As a result it is easier to adopt new policies, but on the other side legitimization to govern is limited and connected to economic growth. A closer analysis of China reveals the existence of several influential interest groups and lobbyists which makes governing China a balancing act in itself yet this will not be subject of this study. China and India both face serious principal-agent problems when it comes to enforcing laws and due to large heterogeneous populations, governing each country is a complex challenge. Today, according to GDP in PPP data China and India rank 2nd and 4th respectively globally. Their share is likely to improve and they are expected to become the world's biggest energy importers and CO2 emitters. The rise of the two nations can be interpreted as a shift of power from the Western Hemisphere towards Asia resulting in major challenges for the international community but also in a regional Asian context. It is very important to note that although China and India are both rising at the same point of time, they are rising in a different pace. China outperforms India in almost every indicator of economic development. It is the key aim of this study to point out this asymmetry between China and India. Another question is, if India is capable of catching up with China in the future and its effects to Sino-Indian relations. In that context noting the mutual perception of India and China is important. To some extent, China dealt with India only as a regional issue, having delegates of provincial governments meet with Indian federal counterparts. On the other side India and China cooperated in international forums, most recently during the Copenhagen summit in 2009, which is an indicator for equal perception. On the other side signs for future tensions can be derived from military modernization programs and competition over natural resources. Analyzing the bilateral trade between China and India serves to increase the understanding of the nature of Sino-Indian relations. It is important to note that the economic structure of India and China differs significantly. Economic aspects are also just one facet of Sino-Indian relations. However heterogeneity is always a common element in every study and although abstraction leads to a loss of information it is a necessary tool to understand Sino-Indian relations. Analyzing bilateral commodity trade provides insight in the intensity of bilateral trade, and intra-industry indices and relative comparative advantage indices provide insight in the complementary and competitive element of bilateral trade relations. Another important aspect is the role of China and India in third markets. India and China are major trade nations, yet the latter outperforms the former significantly. Nevertheless third-market trade reveals possible areas of competition and cooperation. Matching trade baskets are indicators for competitive third-market trade. A dynamic analysis provides insight if the possibility of competition in third markets is increasing and predictions can be derived from it. However it is important to note that commodity trade data are imperfect and the presented results must be regarded critically since they are only an approximation of real international trade. The share of informal economic activities is very high, and differences between international databases are also remarkable. It is important to note that databases receive their information from the very country, and regarding India and China it is particularly in question if they are able or willing to generate and provide accurate data. In addition remittances and triangular trade is not captured by commodity trade databases which are particularly high in the case of India. Hongkong also appears as a separate unit in the trade data. Although it is legally part of China and serves as a major trade hub it will not be recognized in this study. Although China regards Taiwan as a Chinese province it will be analyzed as an independent country. Due to poor availability of bilateral service data, it will not be recognized to the extent as desired. The hypothesis of this study is that there exists a substantial asymmetric component in Sino-Indian relations favoring China. In the long run more symmetric relations are possible to emerge, and India is already catching up yet policy changes could increase this process significantly. Defining India and China as competitors or partners presupposes equality to a certain extend. The last section of this study discusses this question and provides a brief outlook of possible areas of competition and partnership. However it has to be kept in mind that Indian-Chinese relations are a complex matter and providing a simple yes or no answer is not aim of this study.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: I.Introduction II.Historical Overview II.Comparing India and China IV.Chinese-Indian Bilateral Trade Relations V.China and India in Third Markets VI.ConclusionTextprobe:Text Sample: Latin America: Chinese and Indian trade with Brazil reveals that Chinese exports were 6.8 times larger than India's in 2004. However the gap decreased to a ratio of 5.7:1 in 2008. Both countries have shown large growth rates in their exports in this time period accounting 49.2%(China) and 53.5%(India) respectively. Brazil is not a major import partner for India. Chinas imports from Brazil increased significantly faster than India's. In 2004 Chinese imports were 13 times larger than Indian but the ratio increased to 25.7 in 2008. Chinas average import growth rate (32.9%) also exceeded India's (10.2%). With respect to possible areas of competition, 28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp) and 67 (Iron and Steel) are both major import goods for the two countries.28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp) accounts for 47.7 % of Chinese and 20.1% of India's imports from Brazil. On the export side, India and China are likely to face competition in the area of 65 (Textile Yarn, Fabric,ect). However China was able sign major deals with Brazil in 2010 and is expected to continue its relative dominance in Brazil. India's main export good to Brazil is 33 (Petroleum, Petrol.Product) accounting 49.1% of total exports. Chinas main export good to Brazil is 76 (Telecomm. Sound Equip ect), accounting 16.7%. Chinas exports to Argentina exceeded India's by the factor 8.1 in 2004 and increased further to 13.2 in 2008. On the import side China also gained relatively to India, increasing the China-India ratio from 6.5 in 2004 to 15.8 in 2008. Regarding import trends it is noteworthy that India's imports from Argentina have been decreasing between 18-25% during 2006-2008 while Chinas imports increased ranging from 48% to 78%. Analyzing the trade baskets reveals that competition in 42 (Fixed Veg. Fats and Oils) and 61 (Leather, Leather Goods) is likely to occur regarding imports. On the export side 51 (Organic Chemicals), which is the main export article for both countries accounting 15.3% of Chinas exports and 16% of India's exports is a potential area of competition. Chinas exports to Chile were 16.1 times larger than India's in 2004 and 14.9 times larger in 2008. China's imports exceeded India's by the factor of 11.9 in 2004 and by 6.4 in 2008. Regarding imports, China increased its imports from Chile by 24% annually on average, while India's imports were quite volatile. Between 2005 and 2006 India's imports increased by 300%. This can be traced back to trade agreements between India and Chile, since imports stayed on the level. However growth rates slowed down to 22% the following year and decreased by 7% between 2007 and 2008. Analyzing the trade baskets of China and India reveals 68 (Non-Ferrous Metals), 28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp) and 52 (Inorganic Chemicals) as possible fields of import competition. On the export side, 84 (Clothing and Assessories) and 65 (Textile Yarn, Fabric,ect ) are possible areas of competition. Therefore in Latin America, there is also a large gap between the involvement of India and China. Only in Chile indicators reveal relative increases of Indian importance as a trade partner. On the other side several areas of possible competition can be identified including 28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp), 52 (Inorganic Chemicals), 67 (Iron and Steel), 68 (Non-Ferrous Metals), 74 (General Industl. Mach. Nes), 79 (Other Transport Equipment) and 87 (Scientific Equipment nes) on the import side and 51 (Organic Chemicals), 65 (Textile Yarn, Fabric,ect), 84 (Clothing and Assessories ) and 89 (Misc Manufactured Goods, nes ) on the export side . EU27: The European Union is the largest trade partner of China and also one of the largest partners of India.Chinas exports to EU27 were 7.9 times larger than India's in 2004. The gap increased slightly to 8.4 in 2008. Chinese imports outperformed India's by the factor of 2.8 in 2004 and decreased the factor 2.5 in 2008. Analyzing the trade baskets reveals that both countries list 74(General Industl. Mach. Nes), 77 (Elec Mch Appar,Parts, nes), 72(Special. Indust. Machinery) and 79 (Other Transport Equipment) as their major import goods from Europe. On the export side, 84 (Clothing and Assessories) is a possible area of competition, since it is India's first and China's third largest export commodity to Europe. Africa: Chinas exports to Nigeria exceeds India's by the factor of 3.18 in 2004 and by 4.9 in 2008. Regarding imports a major shift occurred during the time of analyzis. In 2004 Chinese imports exceeded India's by the factor 8.7. However since 2006 Indian imports started to surge (increased by 900% in one year, because of a major contract regarding oil drilling rights) and in 2008 Indian imports from Nigeria were 19.1 times larger than China's. The import trade baskets reveal that India and China import mostly 33 (Petroleum, Petrol. Product) from Nigeria. Petroleum and petroleum products account for 96.4% and 81.8% of exports respectively. However given the large demand of oil by China this indicates, that Nigeria is not a major supplier of 33 (Petroleum, Petrol. Product) to China. Regarding exports both countries are likely to engage in competition in 78 (Roads Vehicles). Regarding Sudan, the picture is quite different. In Sudan, Chinas exports exceeded India's by the factor 3.3 in 2004 and by 4.6 in 2008. Chinese imports from Sudan were 74,7 times larger than India's in 2004 and the ratio dropped to 11.6 in 2008. Both countries increased their exports to Sudan on a double digit percentage level while data from 2008 shows India's increase (31.1%) ahead of China's (20.5%). Regarding import growth, China's largest increase occurred in 2007. It is noteworthy that China is a major investor in order to obtain Sudanese oil. India's imports from Sudan increased significantly in 2006 (+253%).